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Google awaits more court verdicts
GOOGLE - or, strictly, its parent company, now called Alphabet - ought be nervous. On 30 September main arguments closed in US v. Google II, a case in which the US Department of Justice (DoJ) alleges that Google is a monopolist in the online advertising market. Of course this affects journalism, with many publishers having placed their faith in online advertising as "dead tree" publishing dies off and online subscription models seem to work only for the few.
We found this summary from Digital Content Next useful. Closing arguments are due on 25 November and judgment in January.
Already, in US v. Google I US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled on 5 August that Google was behaving as a monopoly in search services. On 8 October the DoJ declared that it is considering "remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play [its app store], and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products". This has been taken as a sign that it is considering demanding that Alphabet be broken up - as happened to the then US telephone monopoly AT&T following a ruling in 1984.
Of course Google also faces lawsuits over its unauthorised use of copyright works to train so-called artificial intelligence - not least from the New York Times and Getty Images. While we were proofreading this the Press Gazette published a running round-up of which publishers are suing and which are settling.
But in the US competition law - known there as "anti-trust" law - is the big beast.
In yet another US anti-trust case, on 8 October Judge James Donato ordered Google to open its App Store to competitors.
All these cases are, of course, almost certain to be appealed.
In the UK, on 6 September the Competition and Markets Authority issued a provisional finding that Google has "harmed competition by using its dominance in online display advertising to favour its own ad tech services" - that is, acted as a monopoly. The CMA currently expects to hold hearings between April and December 2025.
In the EU, on 18 September Google won a challenge against the size of a €1.49 billion (£1.25 billion) fine for monopolistic behaviour in online advertising. This came just eight days after the Court of Justice of the European Union rejected its challenge to a €2.4 billion fine levied in 2017 for abusing its dominant position in online search to benefit its own shopping service. The company got a fine for using its Android mobile phone operating system to enforce use of its web browser and search reduced slightly in 2022 to €4.125 billion.
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