Google Faces as of Tuesday United States of America hearing for Monopoly the most important for over twenty years. Technology giant owned by multinational company Alphabet, is accused of violating competition laws by abusing its overwhelming dominance of the search market. The case may result in transformation Internet as we know.
Starting tomorrow, top executives of Google and other companies in the industry will appear in federal court washington responding to a double demand. On October 20, 2020, almost three years ago, the U.S. government and dozens of states across the country formally accused the Mountain View company of illegally maintaining a monopoly in both countries. calls both on the web and advert of your calls.
“This lawsuit strikes at the heart of Google’s control of the Internet for millions of American consumers, advertisers, small businesses and entrepreneurs. illegal monopoly“At the time, Attorney General William Barr said in a statement.
The lawsuit, analysts noted, is likely the largest lawsuit filed by the U.S. government against a technology company in the last 25 years. In May 1998, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit. Microsoft To include your web browser in Windows. Interestingly, four months later, Larry Page And Sergei Brin They founded the giant Google, which turned a quarter century this year.
“Illegal network” of contracts
This was apparently achieved through an “illegal network of contracts” that Google signed with manufacturers such as: manzana, SAMSUNG, LG anyone Motorola’s and with browser developers like below Mozilla or Opera To be the default search engine on your mobile devices. These agreements will also include pre-installation of other applications such as: Gmail, Maps anyone Chromium.
It was revealed that Google will pay Apple approximately $18 billion a year in 2021. iPhone to Match, prioritize your search engine. This high cost may have been determined by the desire to control that market and “crowd out” competitors. Microsoft of the competition. Judge Amit Mehta will be responsible for deciding whether these contracts represent an “exclusive course of conduct.”
obvious dominance
This strategy has enabled Google to dominate Internet searches with an iron fist, with more than 80% market share. Alphabet recorded $283 billion in revenue last year. income and 76,000 million benefits. More than half comes from jobs obtained from search engines. With a market value of $1.723 trillion, Alphabet is the fourth most valuable company in the world, after technology companies Apple and Microsoft and oil company Saudi Aramco. Its hegemony is so obvious that it gave rise to the term. Googleis a verb that was coined as a result of its global popularity and is used as a synonym for “search the Internet”.
Google assures that its success is not because it manipulates the market in its favor, but because its tools are the best. “Changing the default search engine is easy. We are long past the era of dial-up Internet and CD-ROMs,” said Kent Walker, head of Google Global Affairs.
The breakup of Google?
This is the first case against Google to reach US courts. The hearing may last several weeks or may result in a penalty that will change the operation of the company. Although it seems unlikely, US antitrust officials have not ruled out breaking up Google, thinking that this repeated stance could threaten the emergence of rivals. In any case, the lawsuit itself already represents a small step forward for the Biden administration, which filed another antitrust lawsuit against Google over ad tech in January.
Although the case represents a turning point in the US, in the European Union (EU) the giant has already faced harsh sanctions from regulators for violating laws by abusing its dominance to stifle competition. Just a year ago, public justice felt that Google was imposing its services on devices using its operating system. Android and determined the penalty as 4 billion 125 million euros, the highest figure in its history.