{"id":564612,"date":"2024-10-10T08:37:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T06:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=564612"},"modified":"2024-10-10T08:37:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-10T06:37:54","slug":"google-monopoly-under-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/564612-google-monopoly-under-fire.html","title":{"rendered":"Google monopoly under fire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Google\u2019s antitrust problems are coming home to roost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the company has beat back European antitrust interventions by paying 6.5 billion euros (R125 billion), US enforcers are now flexing their muscles \u2014 and the most painful part for the Alphabet unit won\u2019t be monetary fines, but blows to core businesses that bring in big revenue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a span of three days, a federal judge ordered<\/a> the company to open up its lucrative app store to rivals and the Justice Department said it may seek to force the tech giant to spin off some of its services to remedy its monopolization of online search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While a breakup may be a hard sell to the Washington judge overseeing the Justice Department\u2019s search case, Google is undoubtedly looking at changes to the way it has long operated, antitrust experts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Justice Department is trying to come up with \u201cremedies that will not only reintroduce competition in search but make sure that as the market changes, Google doesn\u2019t re-entrench\u00a0itself,\u201d Abiel Garcia, antitrust lawyer and partner at Kesselman Brantly Stockinger LLP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remedies might cause Google \u201cto rethink and reevaluate business strategy to some extent, but it\u2019s not like we\u2019re not going to have a Google anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google criticized<\/a> the Justice Department\u2019s initial proposal as \u201cradical,\u201d saying it would have \u201csignificant unintended consequences for consumers, businesses, and American competitiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company\u2019s shares have declined more than 15% since reaching an all-time record of $191.18 (R3,371) on July 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a clear overhang when it comes to the antitrust side of things and the scrutiny that Alphabet gets,\u201d Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech industry analyst Mandeep Singh said on Bloomberg TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dhaval Moogimane<\/a>, a senior partner at consulting firm West Monroe, said forcing Google to share its index could aid not just search rivals, but AI companies seeking to enter the space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing the search data \u201ccertainly opens up competition, which is the intent here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is the secret sauce from a Google perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet. Photographer: David Paul Morris\/Bloomberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Vanderbilt Law School professor Rebecca Allensworth<\/a>, who has closely followed the suit, says she thinks it is \u201cvery unlikely\u201d that US District Judge Amit Mehta would go for a breakup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much of the Justice Department\u2019s case focused on Google\u2019s $20 billion (R353 billion) deal with Apple to be the search default on the iPhone, she said, not on Chrome or Android \u2014 the Google products that DOJ identified to be potentially spun off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mehta has very closely hewed to the Microsoft case, she said, where the Justice Department successfully sued the Windows maker in 1998 for monopolizing computer operating systems. The judge in that case initially decided Microsoft should be broken up before being overturned on appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no way that judge is going to break up Google on this case,\u201d Allensworth said of Mehta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Kwoka<\/a>, an economist at Northeastern University who has extensively researched antitrust remedies, said the breakup \u201cought to be on the table\u201d at least as a \u201csignal\u201d to Google and other companies with monopolization cases pending that antitrust enforcers won\u2019t accept a wimpy resolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a conduct remedy, the company has the incentive to evade, and even mandatory data access can be tricky because of questions about who gets the data and how much, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe track record on structural remedies is pretty good,\u201d Kwoka said, noting the AT&T breakup occurred after years of unsuccessfully trying to fix the problems with conduct remedies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere can be a lot of collateral damage if enforcers wait to bite the bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Kovacic, an antitrust professor at George Washington University Law School, said the Justice Department\u2019s filing was a \u201cconscious effort at framing\u201d the issue for the judge, \u201cgiving him a menu from milder to spicy hot.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notwithstanding Google\u2019s labeling of a breakup as a \u201cradical\u201d solution, Kovacic noted businesses today have \u201ca lot of experience putting companies together and taking them apart.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And some of the Justice Department\u2019s proposals \u2013 such as the requirement to share some of the company\u2019s search data \u2013 are already in place in Europe as part of a rollout of new digital gatekeeper rules, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kwoka and Allensworth also agreed the Justice Department may be trying to use the breakup option as an opening gambit so Mehta is more inclined to pick another remedy they like, such as data-sharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat would be a really progressive remedy,\u201d said Allensworth. \u201cSharing the index would be a nice, obvious way\u201d to resolve the issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department said it may seek to force the tech giant to spin off some of its services to remedy its monopolization of online search.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":552949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[32030,397,1567,167,45108],"class_list":["post-564612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-alphabet","tag-android","tag-chrome","tag-google","tag-play-store"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":564616,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564612\/revisions\/564616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}