District Court Ruling Against Google Casts a Long Shadow Over US Tech Industry, ITIF Says
WASHINGTON—Following a ruling by Judge Amit P. Mehta in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that Google’s browser and Android agreements constituted unlawful monopolization under Sherman Act §2, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, released the following statement from Joseph V. Coniglio, director of ITIF’s Schumpeter Project on Competition Policy:
While the Department of Justice will flaunt today’s decision against Google as a win for the rule of law and innovation, it is actually a dangerous precedent based on faulty antitrust reasoning that will cast a long shadow over the American technology industry.
In claiming that new capabilities like artificial intelligence do not yet pose a competitive constraint on Google, Judge Mehta has taken an astoundingly static view of the search space. There are numerous ways in which companies like OpenAI are already patently expanding the options consumers have for accessing information.
Similarly, the notion that Google’s default agreements are exclusive and harm consumers is grounded primarily in a static foreclosure analysis. This, buttressed by a seemingly uncritical acceptance of the DOJ's theories of behavioral economics, ignores the common-sense reality of how easy it is for consumers to change their default settings and access other search engines.
Perhaps most concerning, Judge Mehta inexplicably found that none of Google’s many procompetitive justifications were supported. That was not only clearly erroneous but a testament to the extreme posture of the decision, even relative to cases like U.S. v. Microsoft, which acknowledged the existence of some procompetitive benefits.
Google will almost certainly appeal today’s decision to the D.C. Circuit. Regardless, nothing in the flawed opinion suggests that a Google breakup—the dream of the radical neo-Brandeisian movement—will be the ultimate outcome of the DOJ’s continued attack on one of the world’s leading technology companies.
Contact: Sydney Mack, [email protected]
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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational institute focusing on the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. Recognized by its peers in the think tank community as the global center of excellence for science and technology policy, ITIF’s mission is to formulate and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovation and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity, and progress.
