Trust-busters look to undermine business at all costs
The trust-busters are back, and they want to ruin your cell phones.
Following a wide-reaching case, they may get their way too. After a several-year-long-saga, the courts sided with the U.S. Department of Justice in the United States v. Google.
The court ruled, “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” The verdict is potentially paradigm-shifting, but it is riddled with concerning conclusions and could set the stage for further attacks on America’s favorite tech companies.
The crux of the legal dispute revolves around Google’s search engine enjoying a large market share and how it is found on most mobile devices. “Google has not achieved market dominance by happenstance,” reads the ruling. “It has hired thousands of highly skilled engineers, innovated consistently, and made shrewd business decisions.” The audacity of Google to make good business decisions!
“For years, Google has secured default placements through distribution contracts,” the court continued. “It has entered into such agreements with browser developers, mobile device manufacturers, and wireless carriers. These partners agree to install Google as the search engine that is delivered to the user right out of the box […] More users mean more advertisers, and more advertisers mean more revenues.” This, the ruling asserts, violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Is Google really a monopoly that engages in anticompetitive behavior? The commonly accepted definition of monopoly suggests the answer is no. Merriam Webster defines monopoly as “exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action.” Google doesn’t meet that standard.
It isn’t the only search engine available, which I should remind readers is a service offered freely to consumers. Bing, Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo compete with Google and offer quality search engines. There are also vertical search engines like Amazon, Expedia and Yelp that compete with Google. You can use them on your desktop and install their apps on your mobile devices. Nobody is forcing you to use Google. You have a host of alternative options.
But leave it to the government to move the goalposts to meet their needs. “Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct,” according to the Federal Trade Commission. This implies that the government can use antitrust laws and ambiguous definitions to target companies that have somehow offended them, whether or not they have a monopoly. That should concern most Americans.
The government also took offense to Google’s tactic of securing contracts to guarantee its search engine appears on mobile devices, but this seems more like smart business than being an anti-competitive strategy. The company wants consumers to have easy access to its product in the hulking mobile market and, just like any business, wants to obtain advantages over its competitors. This is exactly what Google has done in the mobile market. Other companies can—and do—still compete with Google. They can also strive to obtain such contracts, but this doesn’t mean consumers have to use the pre-loaded apps.
My phones have come with so many apps that I don’t even know what some do and I’ve never used them. For some reason, my provider really wants me to use TikTok, for instance. So having them preloaded isn’t necessarily the advantage that the courts think. I’ve also downloaded another search engine before: Bing. It was easy. However, having pre-loaded apps can be incredibly convenient and save time. Can you imagine having to install all of your favorite apps each time you purchase a new phone? It would be a pain and incredibly time-consuming.
While the court ruling delved in legal gymnastics trying to show that Google has a monopoly and engages in anti-competitive behavior, a bizarre line in the verdict may explain Google’s rise to prominence better than vague monopolistic accusations: “The result [of Google’s work] is the industry’s highest quality search engine.” First, this sounds more like an endorsement and advertisement for Google’s search engine, instead of a scathing indictment. Second, this admission suggests that perhaps consumers just like their product and there are no Sherman Antitrust violations after all.
The trust-busters might be back, but this ruling promises to be mired in appeals for the foreseeable future. “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Google responded. “As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.”