Recently Google faced the 3rd antitrust lawsuit, and it’s one of the major lawsuits for using Monopolistic powers to control different pricing. In this lawsuit, more than 30 states joined Google’s mushrooming legal miseries.
We have recently reported that Google Faces a $5 billion Lawsuit in the U.S. for Tracking When Users Browsing via “Incognito” Mode.
Similar to the recent lawsuit against Facebook for Illegal Monopolization, This lawsuit accused the Silicon Valley titan Google’s illegally determining its search results to accelerate out all the smaller competitors.
The Supreme Court has cautioned; there are things called antitrust evils. This action will authenticate that Google is sinful for such antitrust evils, and it tries to guarantee that Google won’t be destructive anymore.
Google’s Market Power
Google has some certain market powers that we have mentioned below:-
- Publisher inventory management
- Display ad exchange
- Display ad networks
- Display ad-buying tools for large and small advertisers
Anticompetitive Effects
There are some anticompetitive effects that we have mentioned below:-
- Anticompetitive effects in the publisher ad server market
- Anticompetitive effects in the exchange market
- Anticompetitive effects in the markets for display ad-buying tools for the small advertiser and display ad-buying tools for large advertisers
- Harm to innovation
- Harm to consumers
Illegal conduct
Initially, the lawsuits blamed Google for using its Search advertising marketing tool to critically limit the tool’s ‘interoperability’ with a competitor, thereby disadvantaging the advertisers.
Moreover, Google restricts the consumers from bypassing its general search engine and proceeding directly to their chosen target. The revenue of Google from search engines has grown 300% in the last decade and accounts for 61% of Google’s total revenue.
Apart from this, Google has a long-standing contract with Apple, for illustration, to be the default search provider on its results.
Claims
The claims that have been made by the court are mentioned below:-
- COUNT I- MONOPOLIZATION IN VIOLATION OF SECTION II OF THE SHERMAN ACT, 15 U.S.C 2
- COUNT II- ATTEMPTED MONOPOLIZATION IN VIOLATION OF SECTION II OF THE SHERMAN ACT, 15 U.S.C 2
- COUNT III- UNLAWFUL TYING IN VIOLATION OF SECTION II OF THE SHERMAN ACT, 15 U.S.C 2
- COUNT IV- UNLAWFUL AGREEMENT IN VIOLATION OF SECTION I OF THE SHERMAN ACT, 15 U.S.C 1
- COUNT V- SUPPLEMENTAL STATE LAW ANTITRUST CLAIM
- COUNT VI- SUPPLEMENTAL STATE DECEPTIVE TRADE LAW CLAIMS
However, many critics have disputed for years that Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon have created sprawling empires over the business, communications, and culture and then violated their growing power.
All these lawsuits designate a shift in government understanding of big tech firms being surveyed as monopolies that easily suffocate competition. According to the complaint, Google also contributes revenue share agreements along with other mobile manufacturers as well as carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
The whole state is urging the court to modify solutions, which also includes ordering Google to stop meshing in the claimed anticompetitive practices and even possibly splitting up the company.
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