US Google antitrust lawsuit ushers in a new era of muscular Big Tech enforcement

MLex Market Insight

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4.9 • 9 Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

It’s hard to overstate the significance of the US government’s lawsuit targeting Google over allegations that its agreements with Apple and Android phonemakers to make the search engine the default on their devices has made it too difficult for search rivals to compete. The court action is the most significant antitrust case to affect Big Tech since the 1998 suit against Microsoft and this week’s news of the enforcement action has reverberated around the world. And while the outcome of the Department of Justice lawsuit is hard to predict, there are those who would argue that by avoiding antitrust action of this kind in the US until now, Google has already won.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Mlex's weekly podcast covering the top stories in regulatory affairs from around the world.
0:17.0	I'm James Panicki from Mlex's Asia-Pacific team. It's great to be with you again.
0:22.0	And yes, it's on. The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust complaint against Google.
0:29.3	The allegations are that the tech giants agreements with Android phone makers to preload the search engine made it too difficult for rival search engines to compete.
0:39.8	The DOJ was joined by 11 state governments in the most significant antitrust court action
0:45.9	filed against a tech company since the DOJ suit against Microsoft in 1998.
0:52.3	Now, it's hard to overstate the significance of these developments. The lawsuit
0:57.0	ushers in a new era of more muscular US antitrust enforcement by both the federal government
1:02.4	and state authorities. And the complaint caps a DOJ probe that has investigated Google's
1:09.3	search and advertising businesses for more than 18 months.
1:13.4	There's so much to cover in our discussion this week, so let's get cracking. And just a very
1:18.0	quick parenthesis, if you'd been expecting a program on tech regulation in the EU and merger
1:24.4	laws in the UK, well, fear not we will be bringing you that program next week.
1:29.8	To flesh out the significance of the DOJ's Google lawsuit, we're joined now by two members of
1:35.0	the team that has brought our subscribers five detailed pieces of analysis since the announcement
1:40.9	on October the 20th. Cushita Vassant is our senior antitrust correspondent in Washington, D.C.,
1:47.1	and she's making her MLEX podcast debut today.
1:51.2	And our listeners already know Mike Swift.
1:53.4	He's Mlex's chief global digital risk correspondent based in San Francisco.
1:59.3	Okay, Cushita, starting from you, tell me something about this DOJ complaint.
2:05.7	Why is it so significant?
2:08.0	This complaint comes after more than 20 years of any significant case that the DOJ has
	...

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