NEWSLETTER
In a sign that President Trump is following the leadership of the Biden Administration in Reinin on Google, the Department of Justice on Friday reiterated his demand for a court to break the search giant.
The application followed an emblematic decision last year by Judge Amit Amit P. Mehta, of the United States District Court for the Columbia district, which found Google had illegally maintained the monopoly in the online search by paying web browsers and smartphone manufacturers to present their search engine. The judge is expected to hear arguments about proposed solutions from both the government and Google in April.
According to the Biden Administration last year, the Department of Justice and a group of states asked Judge Mehta in a preliminary presentation that forces Google to sell his popular web browser, Chrome, among other remedies. Department's lawyers reiterated on Friday that demand, which could remodel Internet competition.
“Google's illegal behavior has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc on the market to ensure that, regardless of what happens, Google always wins,” said the government in its Friday presentation. “Therefore, the American people are forced to accept unbridled demands and changing ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in exchange for a search engine that the public can enjoy.”
Google, who says he intends to appeal the judge's ruling in the case, also presented his own final proposal on Friday, maintaining his position that the company should not need to change much to address the judge's concerns.
The decision of the Justice Department to continue with its wide proposal to fundamentally alter the company of the company of $ 2 billion is one of the first signals of the new administration on how it can address technological regulation. Applications, the most significant remedies proposed in a case of technological monopoly since the Department of Justice asked to break Microsoft in 2000, could presage how those named of Trump will handle a series of other antitrust cases that challenge the domain of technological giants.
The Department of Justice has also sued Google for its domain in advertising technology, a case that awaits a decision, as well as Apple for stating that its very woven devices and software system makes it difficult for consumers who leave. A case of the Federal Trade Commission against Meta, for claims that Meta turned off the competition when he bought instagram and WhatsApp, is scheduled to go to trial in April. The agency has also sued amazon, accusing him of illegally protecting a monopoly in online retail trade.
The technology industry is closely observing Mr. Trump's elections to lead these agencies, since he tries to determine their regulation approach. The antitrust cases against technological giants come from investigations that began during the first mandate of Mr. Trump.
Andrew Ferguson, the new president of the FTC, has expressed concern about the power of technological giants as guardian of online speech. Gail Slater, nominated for Mr. Trump to direct the antimonopoly division of the Department of Justice, said during his Senate confirmation hearing that he was worried that someone “can disappear from the Internet quite easily when there are only two platforms that provide news, for example, to the US people.”
Friday's presentation was signed by Omeed A. Assefi, who leads the antimonopoly division, while Mrs. Slater awaits a vote of the Senate about her nomination.
technology executives have visited Mar-a-Lago in recent months to court the president's favor, and have donated millions of dollars to the inauguration of Mr. Trump. The executive directors, including Apple Tim Cook, Google Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta sat behind Mr. Trump during their inauguration.
The first important test of the Trump administration approach about the concerns about Big tech's power will be how it comes in the case of Google search.
During a 10 -week test in 2023, the government said that Google blocked rivals signing agreements with Apple, Mozilla, Samsung and others to automatically appear as the search engine when users opened a smartphone or a new tab in a web browser. Google paid $ 26.3 billion for those agreements in 2021, according to the evidence presented at the trial.
Google argued that their agreements had not violated the law, and that users chose their search engine because it was better to find information than rivals such as Microsoft's Bing or Duckckgo, which claims to offer their users more privacy than search engines that collect more information to direct users with advertisements.
After Judge Mehta ruled in August that Google had illegally maintained the monopoly, the Department of Justice proposed last year that the company was forced to sell Chrome.
The Government asked the court to prevent Google from entering the agreements paid with Apple, Mozilla and smartphone manufacturers to be the predetermined search engine on smartphones and browsers. The company must also allow rival search engines to show Google's results and have access to their data for a decade, the government said in its presentation at that time.
The Government had also said that Google, whose parent company is the alphabet, should be forced to get rid of its participations in any artificial intelligence product that can compete with the search, an offer to prevent the company from dominating the nascent technology.
The Department of Justice changed that part of its application on Friday, saying that Google should have to notify federal and state officials before continuing with investments in ai
The government also said that Google should have to make changes in the commercial practices of its Android smartphone operating system, eliminating an option that would have allowed the company to simply sell Android. If the market did not become more competitive, the court could order Google to sell Android, according to the new presentation.
Google had urged Judge Mehta to adopt a narrower approach. He asked that other companies continue to be paid to give their prime placement of Search Engine web browsers in web browsers and smartphones. But he said that these agreements should be less restrictive than in the past and allow other search engines to compete for the main placement in phones and browsers. In addition, browse manufacturers such as Apple and Mozilla should be allowed to change their predetermined search engines at least every 12 months, the company said.
On Friday, Google presented an identical proposal before Judge Mehta. The government's proposals “would damage the consumers of the United States, the national economy and security,” added a Google spokesman, Peter Schottenfels, in a statement.
Judge Mehta is scheduled next month to preside over a hearing of almost two weeks to determine the remedies in the case, which will have testimony and lawyer arguments for both parties.
(Tagstotranslate) Google inc
