Google’s next antitrust trial is set to start on Monday, and after years of mostly prevailing over regulators and competitors, the tech giant is heading into its latest courtroom showdown with an increasingly shaky legal track record.
Google’s luck in U.S. courts ran out in December when a federal jury sided with Epic Games, a video game developer, and its antitrust claims against Google’s operation of its app store. Eight months later, a federal judge sided with the Justice Department and said Google broke the law to rig the search market.
The company had already been dinged by legal challenges in Europe, where regulators brought antitrust cases against the company years before their American peers. But the August ruling by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a decision that Google said it would appeal, could pave the way for more private lawsuits against Google and reshape the entire tech industry if it leads to the breakup of the search giant.
Now, the company faces another claim by the Justice Department, this time that it broke the law to advance its advertising technology systems and should be forced to divest the unit. Google has argued that the government’s claims do not account for significant competition in the advertising market from companies such as Amazon and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The trial, in federal court in Alexandria, Va., is expected to last more than a month.
José Castañeda, a Google spokesman, said the company has “a strong record of defending the quality of our products and services so that people can access them safely and easily.”
“In the past year alone,” he added, “we’ve won dozens of cases globally and brought and supported successful cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Here’s how Google fared in other high-profile cases:
Google vs. Oracle
Result: A Google victory
Before the Justice Department brought two antitrust cases against Google, the company’s biggest legal fight was against a Silicon Valley peer. Oracle, the software company, sued in 2010, saying Google infringed on patents and copyright protections by using Oracle’s coding language, without permission, to build the Android mobile operating system.
The companies duked it out in courtrooms for more than a decade before the Supreme Court stepped in three years ago. In a 6-to-2 decision, the justices found that Google had been able to use the coding language under so-called fair use and had not violated Oracle’s copyright.
The Authors Guild vs. Google
Result: A Google victory
In 2004, Google began scanning and digitizing more than 20 million books from major research libraries, letting users search the repository, called Google Books, and pointing out where they could buy or borrow the texts. The Authors Guild and several writers took issue with the initiative and sued the company in 2005, saying it was mass copyright infringement.
The legal battle concluded in 2016 when the Supreme Court agreed with an appeals court that the project was a fair use of the authors’ work.
Viacom vs. YouTube
Result: A settlement
In 2007, YouTube, the video platform owned by Google, faced a legal threat that could have effectively shut it down. Viacom, a cable giant that owned MTV and Comedy Central, sued YouTube for copyright infringement. Viacom was upset that users were uploading its content to the platform without permission and wanted $1 billion from YouTube. It was a major test of whether a video platform could be held responsible for the content uploaded by its users.
After seven years, the companies settled the suit and agreed to work together more closely.
Gonzalez vs. Google
Result: Unresolved
Google faced a challenge to the legal shield that covers social media companies when it comes to content that their users post. The company was sued by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old college student who was killed in Paris during terrorist attacks in November 2015. The family’s lawyers argued that YouTube recommended Islamic State videos to interested viewers, helping to spread the group’s ideology.
Last year, the Supreme Court declined to hold Google liable in the case and sent it back to a lower court.
Epic Games vs. Google
Result: A Google loss
Google faced an antitrust setback in December when a federal jury in San Francisco determined the company had violated antitrust laws to extract fees and limit competition from Epic Games and other developers on its Play mobile app store.
Epic had argued that Google narrowed the business prospects of game makers and other developers by imposing strict rules on them. After three hours of deliberations, the jury sided with Epic, putting more pressure on Google to permit more competition on its Android operating system.
Google has repeatedly said it will appeal the verdict.
European Regulators vs. Google
Results: Several Google losses
Google has fared worse in European courtrooms. The company has lost three antitrust cases on the continent claiming that Google broke rules to benefit its Android mobile operating system, its shopping service and an advertising business. The European authorities have fined Google more than 8 billion euros, or $8.7 billion, in the cases — all of which are waiting on appeals.
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