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This article in the Wall Street Journal by Greg Ip shows what a case against Google and Facebook on antitrust charges would look like. He says Standard Oil and American Telephone and Telegraph had over 80% of their market. Ip points out that Google and Facebook's share is 89% and 95%. Here Ip shows that there are secondary effects beyond innovation by such Tech companies and Amazon which restrain competition and could be grounds for antitrust action. These companies favor their own products and skew their algorithms to promote them, making it difficult for newcomers. Also providing less access to venture capital that prefers not to invest in the newcomers that compete with the dominant tech companies.

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Google antitrust decision in Mehta's Court for over 5 years since lawsuit by DJT in first term. During these 5 years much of the behaviours of monopolies and oligopolies in tech is further entrenched and new technology has created new ripples. The result is an ineffectual ruling that does little to address the original concerns of the Justice Department. Lost in all this commotion is the fact that there are real and present dangers in the situation presented by Google as a gatekeeper for knowledge and information which are a real and present danger to democratic forms of government as Google or social media tech companies can act as arbiters of information, a role that is not given to them under the US Constitution or any of the principles laid down by our founding fathers. Instead of being well informed under such tech monopolies and oligopolies the vast majority of the people will not get the information they need to make decisions to the detriment of the Nation. ...

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Joanathan Kanter is the Assistant Attorney General of the US. He was cleared to work on the Justice Department lawsuit against Google and antitrust matters. Kanter is critical of the way Google operates to act as a monopoly in its ad business.

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The Economist points out that the chances of early settlement of the EU antitrust investigation are small. It compares this investigation and the investigation of Microsoft which went on for a decade, and says this one for Google- moving next to Android from Search- is likely to go on for years and years, making the Microsoft one look better in comparison. Will this act as a distraction for management hurting performance as it drags on, is a question posed by experts.

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EU Competition Commissioner, Margarethe Vestager, on a trip to the U.S. to meet FTC and Justice Department officials, says the situation in Europe is different from that in the U.S. In Europe Google has a dominant position with over 90% market share, much more than in the U.S. where Yahoo and Microsoft are competitors in general Internet search. She said about Google following the filing of formal antitrust charges by the EU against the company- "is a successful company because they have good products. But the compliments, they stop when you get the suspicion that there may be an abuse of this very strong and dominant position." In earlier statements Vestager has said that the dominant position in all its ramifications poses "societal challenges." Complaints to the EU Commission originated with Microsoft and smaller companies affected by Google. News Corp, publisher of the WSJ, has joined a group of companies in filing new formal complaints in April 2015 with the EU Commission about Google practices. Google now has 10 weeks to respond to the charges. In the U.S. the FTC also had concerns, with FTC staffers favoring filing formal charges. In the end the FTC decided to rely on Google making voluntary changes to three practices taken up by the FTC- including complaints about "scraping" of content from rival websites, and its restrictions on the ability of advertisers to use competing platforms. Vestager sees the need to get the process moving, as it has dragged on for about 5 years, saying "it is important for us to be more speedy in getting the question out, to be able for Google, for competitors, but most of all for consumers to see our concern." The EU Commission charges about Google favoring its own comaprison shopping service are a way for Vestager to establish a broader precedent, as it looks into other ways Google's uses its dominant position to favor its own products and services....

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Exclusive deals with Samsung, Apple and Mozilla have turned Google into an exclusive monopoly for internet use. The US Justice Department is taking aim at this in the trial that begins today September 12, 2023. It limits choice for Americans and unfairly rewards monopolistic behaviours. President Biden said famously in his State of the Union speech this February "capitalism without competition is not capitalism, it is extortion." It is why the Biden administration is serious about the Tech monopolies which distort the fairness of the American system leading to a monopoly over information so that different ideas are not represented in the same way as they would be in a competitive situation. It also means monopolistic pricing behaviours. 

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Anti-trust regulators at the European Commission filed formal charges against Google on April 14, 2015. The regulators said "Google systematically positions and prominently displays its comparison shopping service in its general search results pages, irrespective of its merits."

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Experts point to several factors favoring a lawsuit by the EU against Google. Google's dominance in Europe is higher than in the U.S., with Google used for 90% of web searches in Europe. The case is easier to build in Europe because the EU commission acts as prosecutor, and EU judges in Luxembourg rarely overturn the commission's major decisions. The EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, who took office in Nov.1, 2014, sees the need to give smaller internet companies room to compete with Google as a definite priority. She favors setting a legal precedent through a formal court process, and says that "citizens and companies should see that we are willing to go to court if that is the right thing to do."

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New developments in the lawsuits filed in Washington DC by 38 states attorney generals related to legal theory. A separate lawsuit was filed by the Justice Department in Virginia against Google. With 90% of the advertising search queries worldwide and $160 billion-in-sales advertising business Google is in a position that is not supported by the idea of competition that is inherent to the American system of business and the economy that holds that no one competitor should dominate the market. This happened during the early twentieth century under Rockefeller's Standard Oil and is happening once again with Google and other tech companies that monopolize space that is vital to maintaining an economy based on fairness and competition. Current legal theory practice fails in this respect as it does not clearly recognize that the principle is at stake that no one company should be allowed to control vital public space or resource such as in this case internet or in the case of Rockefeller energy. Monopolies seen in this way fail the people because they make it impossible to exercize the inalienable rights of man and limit his possibilities by excluding alternatives and alternative expressions. ...

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The WSJ discloses that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition 160 page report in 2012 described Google's anti-compettitive practices and recommended a anit-trust lawsuit for three anti-competitive practices. The WSJ obtained documents based on the Freedom of Information Act. Mullins and Winkler provide a detailed account of the practices cited in the report as anti-competitive. The FTC Commissioners did not act on the report and instead voted unanimously in 2013 to end the investigation after Google agreed to some voluntary changes. The report stated a different conclusion: Google's "conduct has resulted-and will result- in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets." Mullins and Winkler point out that this report shows Google's statement that no wrongdoing was found is incorrect.

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Jonathan Kanter is one of the leaders of a movement that sees big tech companies as monopolists in the tradition of the 19th century railroad and oil companies that gave the original inspiration for the anitrust laws of the United States. Laws that created a better America by building competition in the marketplace and ensuring fairness.

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The US Justice Department is seeking the breakup of Google for monopolistic behaviour.