Google argues that it faces fierce competition from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. It further contends that customers benefited from each of the acquisitions, contracts, and features that the government is challenging. “Google has designed a set of products that work efficiently with each other and attract a valuable customer base,” the company’s attorneys wrote … Read more
WASHINGTON — In over three transformative years as the country’s top antitrust regulator, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has faced down powerful foes, from private equity titans to tech CEOs and supermarket moguls. But Khan, nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by a bipartisan Senate supermajority, now faces adversity from a less familiar … Read more
Larry Page and Sergey Brin never liked hanging with reporters. “Larry can be a very sensitive and good person, but he has major trust issues and few social graces,” a former Google PR person once told me. “Sergey has social graces but doesn’t trust people who he thinks don’t approach his level of intelligence.” Still, … Read more
But if Mehta pursues the approach, he should make some improvements on the EU’s rules, says Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs at DuckDuckGo. Users should be prompted with the choice screen periodically, not just once, Bazbaz says. They shouldn’t have to deal with popups from Google urging them to switch the default … Read more
Google is now 0 for 2 in antitrust trials. US District judge Amit Mehta ruled on Monday that Google has unlawfully maintained its dominance in search by using anticompetitive deals to keep rivals from gaining traction. The ruling follows a weekslong trial in Mehta’s Washington, DC, courtroom last year in which the US Department of … Read more
President Joe Biden knows high housing costs are a barrier to his bid for reelection. “The last I saw, the combination of the inflation, the cost of inflation, all those things, that’s really worrisome to people, with good reason,” he said in a May interview with CNN. “That’s why I’m working very hard to bring … Read more
The latest UK class action, brought by the retailers, seeks financial compensation for the company’s alleged historical practices. “The most obvious and principal effect is a loss of revenue and profits. Amazon is taking sales away from merchants, having been able to use competitor data to bring to market its own products,” claims Boris Bronfentrinker, … Read more
A jury in December found that Google broke US antitrust laws through deals and billing rules that gave an unfair boost to its Google Play app store. On Thursday, a judge began laying out how Google could be forced to change its business as a penalty. The remedies under consideration could drive the most consequential … Read more
The US Department of Justice has sued Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation Entertainment, for abusing their alleged monopoly in the ticketing market to trample competitors. Filed on Thursday in the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit focuses on Ticketmaster’s long-term exclusivity contracts with many of the largest music venues, making it the … Read more
Microsoft has poured over $100 billion into developing its Bing search engine over the past two decades but has little market share to show for it. About nine out of every 10 web searches in the US are made through Google, with Bing splitting the remaining queries with a long list of small competitors. On … Read more
