Despite one of the ugliest and most politically polarized elections in the country’s history, Republicans and Democrats alike have united behind a landmark Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuit challenging a purported monopoly in the big tech space. It threatens to break tech goliath Google up over its dominance in the search engine and online advertising market, and is expected to receive a formal reply from Google by 21 December. Central to the case is the DOJ’s claim that Google abuses its dominance to illegally maintain a monopoly by extracting concessions from other companies that would be impossible in a competitive market. However, this rationale is misguided. By attempting to interfere in a market that is, in fact, competitive and continues to benefit consumers, it risks undermining the welfare of those whom it seeks to protect while diminishing the competitiveness of American companies against their international peers.
At the heart of the lawsuit are Google’s contracts with tech companies that integrate the tech giant’s Android operating system and search services. These contracts pay hardware producers like Samsung and Apple, and browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s Safari, to make Google their default search engine. They also require mobile manufacturers that use Google’s Android operating system to pre-install and bundle applications including Gmail, Google Maps and Youtube.
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