US DoJ files an antitrust lawsuit against Google
According to Reuters, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) together with 11 states have filed a long awaited antitrust lawsuit against Google. Google is accused of breaking antitrust law by using its market power to shut out competitors. The DoJ claims that Google:
- is acting as gatekeeper to the Internet using exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out competitors;
- uses billions of dollars collected from advertisements on its platform to pay mobile phone manufacturers, carriers, and browsers to maintain Google as their preset, default search engine;
- Is arranging that Google’s search application is preloaded, and can’t be deleted, on mobile phones running on the Android operating system;
- unlawfully prohibits competitor search applications from being preloaded on phones under revenue sharing arrangements.
These claims are separate from concerns raised about content moderation and political censorship by online platforms.
The DoJ and the US Attorney General issued statements on the case.