United States takes on Google in biggest tech monopoly trial of 21st century
Source: NPR
September 12, 2023 5:00 AM ET
The United States government is taking on one of the world's most powerful companies: Google.
A court battle kicks off on Tuesday in which the U.S. Justice Department will argue that Google abused its power as a monopoly to dominate the search engine business. It's the government's first major monopoly case to make it to trial in decades and the first in the age of the modern internet.
The Justice Department's case hinges on claims that Google illegally orchestrated its business dealings, so that it's the first search engine people see when they turn on their phones and web browsers. The government says Google's goal was to stomp out competition.
"This lawsuit strikes at the heart of Google's grip over the internet for millions of American consumers, advertisers, small businesses and entrepreneurs beholden to an unlawful monopolist," said former Attorney General William Barr when the case was first filed in October 2020. Now nearly three years later, with millions of pages of documents produced and depositions from more than 150 people, the case is going to trial.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/12/1198558372/doj-google-monopoly-antitrust-trial-search-engine
Heard this story being discussed on the radio news too, as I was creating the OP.

Roy Rolling
(7,255 posts)But isnt it a companys mission to stomp its competition?
I agree with breaking up monopolies, but letting companies grow virtually tax-exempt into giants is the cause of the problem.
Who writes the rules for U.S. citizens? Government or private financial corporations tasked with making profit at any human or environmental cost?
BumRushDaShow
(147,114 posts)before Google. It was basically the "busy" (cluttered) Yahoo for a search engine.
At the time they finally appeared, Google's "plain" white page with a blank search box was a sea-change and a blessing.
Both entities have gone through all kinds of transformations over the past almost 30 years, although Yahoo is just as "busy" and cluttered as always!
justaprogressive
(2,764 posts)AltaVista and HotBot were two great early search engines. Seems to me that
Google copied AltaVista...
BumRushDaShow
(147,114 posts)like AskJeeves (now "Ask" ).
As a federal worker, I had internet access (including a .gov email) before it went "commercial" for the "general public" and used the text-based searches before there was a graphical "world wide web".
Yahoo was the "biggest" most known back in the mid-'90s. Other later ones included Dogpile.
M$ was one of the last "big" ones in with "Bing".
malthaussen
(17,923 posts)... I wonder if the AT&T lawsuit of the last century was bigger? It lasted long enough!
-- Mal