DOJ files antitrust lawsuit against all-powerful anti-Trump Google

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The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit Tuesday alleging that Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct to preserve monopolies in search and search advertising that forms the cornerstones of its vast conglomerate, the WSJ reports.

The DOJ isn’t going after Google for election interference, but Google is guilty of it. Just search ‘Donald Trump’ and then ‘Joe Biden’ to see the difference. They are negative about Trump and positive about Joe. Joes’ scandal is buried.

BIDEN

TRUMP

The DOJ claims that Google maintains its status as a gatekeeper to the internet through an unlawful web of exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out competitors. The government alleges that Google uses billions of dollars collected from advertisements on its platform to pay for mobile-phone manufacturers, carriers, and browsers, like Apple Inc.’s Safari, to maintain Google as their preset, default search engine.

The upshot is that Google has a pole position in search on hundreds of millions of devices in the U.S., with little opportunity for any competitor to make inroads, the government said.

Google owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for about 80% of search queries in the U.S., the lawsuit said. Competitors can’t compete.

This lawsuit took a year of investigation.

GOOGLE RESPONDS

“Today’s lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed,” a Google spokeswoman said. “People use Google because they choose to—not because they’re forced to or because they can’t find alternatives. We will have a fuller statement this morning.”

Google’s defense against critics of all stripes has long been rooted in the fact that its services are largely offered to consumers at little or no cost, undercutting the traditional antitrust argument pointing to potential price harms to those who use a product.

If Google loses, the DOJ might seek structural changes. We can only hope.

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Greg
4 years ago

First of all, Google is broken. At the bottom of every search is “Send Feedback”. I’ve sent feedback many times with a screenshot of the search item and the results. The two aren’t even distantly related. I will usually write what the hell the results have to do with the search. “Learn To Code”, with some expletives. It wasn’t so long ago you could search a statement in quotes and find where it originated. This is helpful for finding source material that someone plagiarized. (This was pre-Biden run for office). The head of Google once said your search should only report one result. That only applies if asking what is “2+2”. There’s more than one answer for 7 * 13.

No one should expect a Court decision anytime soon. It may not arrive in my lifetime.

protagonist vs anti-hero
4 years ago

Aggregator has a link about a Goog whistleblower saying they are out rig it for Biden by any means necessary and Elizabeth Warren thinks the lawsuit doesn’t go far enough!
OT-Just found a picture at a music blog of Jonestown Kool-Aid carnage with a placard overhead saying those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
There is a vibe of connectivity going around and the synchronicity is there if you open your receptors.
Took a trip over the summer and the gas gauge said zero miles to empty with ten plus miles left to get home, a car in front said Pray X 3 on the vanity plate which made me laugh and made it home while maintaining 70 miles an hour.
There is a mighty unseen force that makes all of this possible. I’m just happy to be on this wild ride.

The Prisoner
4 years ago

There goes Barr again, trying to play hero, when he has taken no action whatsoever against censorship and bias.

Happy Happy
4 years ago

Don’t be evil, Google.