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David McCabe, who covers technology policy for The New York Times, is in a Washington courthouse this week to report on a hearing that may change the future of Google.
A federal judge, Amit P. Mehta, ruled last year that Google had acted illegally, breaking antitrust laws to maintain an internet search monopoly. Now the federal government argues that the company must sell Chrome, its popular web browser. Google has asked Judge Mehta to consider a narrower set of changes, and sometime this summer he will determine which measures are necessary.
It is not the only antitrust case the federal government is pursuing against Google, or a handful of other large technology companies including Meta and Apple, Mr. McCabe explained in an interview.
“We are in a moment where the scrutiny of these companies is cresting,” Mr. McCabe said. “We’re going to see if it has any effect on changing their behavior, and changing the law.”
The following conversation has been edited and condensed.
Can you bring us up to speed on how Google got here?
In 2020, the first Trump administration sued Google, arguing that it had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search. It’s not necessarily illegal to be a monopoly, but it is illegal to maintain it by excluding your competitors.
In 2023, the case went to trial under the Biden Justice Department; last year, the judge ruled that Google had in fact broken antitrust laws to entrench its dominance in online search, a field where Google has become synonymous with looking for information online.
Now, because the judge ruled against Google, they are in what is called a remedies hearing to determine what measures the judge should take, if any, to resolve the issues that he raised in his ruling last year. Both sides have proposed measures: The Justice Department has proposed a pretty wide range of ideas, including going as far as asking a court to force Google to divest Chrome, its popular web browser, which would essentially be a breakup. Google has proposed a much narrower set of remedies.
A judge already ruled that Google acted as an illegal monopoly. Does that mean that Google, this ubiquitous presence in our digital lives, is going to change?
It’s fair to expect that the court will implement some remedies. The questions are: What does that look like, and will those remedies actually effect significant change at Google, and in the internet ecosystem? The other thing that I would note here is that Google has said that they will appeal this case, but they are waiting for this remedies phase to be over before they appeal the judge’s ruling.
Can you put the antitrust moment in context? How long has Google drawn concerns?
It has been a long time coming. The last time a major American company was broken up for monopoly concerns was in the 1980s, when AT&T was divided into a number of smaller companies.
Concerns about Google go back more than a decade. In fact, antitrust regulators had looked into some of these issues during the Obama administration and decided not to bring a case. So for Google, it’s been a long time coming, and there have been similar concerns about many of the other tech giants. Meta — which owns Facebook — Amazon and Apple are also facing antitrust cases.
What has the government accused Google of doing?
This case is about the search business. The central allegation is that Google has paid billions of dollars to companies like Apple, Samsung and Mozilla, which makes the Firefox browser, to be the preselected search engine in your browser or on the home screen of your smartphone.
The government argued successfully that those agreements denied any opportunity for Google’s competitors to reach consumers at the level that Google was reaching them, and that Google then had this massive advantage that they were able to use to improve their product, which allowed them in turn to attract more customers and make more money and those deals.
In a separate case in federal court in Virginia, which was tried last year, the government argued that Google had monopolized part of the technology that places ads on websites. A federal judge ruled this month that in fact Google had violated the law. So the company is also facing the prospect of a remedies phase in that trial as well.
What’s taken place so far in the remedies hearing, which is in its second week, and what are you paying close attention to?
A lot of these witnesses are here to deliver facts, not opinion. You’re listening to the information they are sharing about a competitor’s search engine or A.I. product in relation to Google’s, or about Google’s business, and you’re trying to understand why each side is asking the questions that they are asking, what picture they are trying to paint. There are not a lot of big, “Perry Mason” dramatic moments. These witnesses have been deposed already and there has been an immense discovery of documents.
You’re watching to see how the judge is responding. Largely he responds in the form of questions. He’ll ask a witness to clarify a technical thing they are describing, or ask a more direct question. You’re trying to understand where the judge stands in response to the arguments.
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