U.S. to update AGs on Google inquiry

Briefing step toward suit, sources say

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department today plans to brief officials from state attorneys general offices on its antitrust action against Google, in what is expected to be one of the final steps before filing a case against the tech giant.

The department will outline a potential lawsuit against Google in a call with state attorneys general, according to four people with knowledge of the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are private. The suit could come within days, they said.

The Justice Department opened its investigation of Google last year, a probe that initially appeared focused on the company’s advertising business but since has come to encompass its dominant footprint in online search.

It marks the first major entanglement between the U.S. government and the tech giant since 2013, when federal officials last scrutinized Google on antitrust grounds but opted against filing a lawsuit challenging the company. In the meantime, European regulators have fined Google billions of dollars for violating antitrust laws.

An agency spokesman declined to comment. A press officer for Google didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

A case against Google

would be the first major action against a technology giant in decades and fulfill President Donald Trump’s pledge to target the big firms of Silicon Valley with antitrust action.

Attorney General William Barr has pushed the agency to move quickly in the investigation and had pledged to announce a decision on his case before the end of summer.

The race to finish the investigation and prepare a lawsuit has roiled career lawyers at the agency, who have complained of pressure to complete an investigation that some feared was spurred by election season motivations. Federal agents said they needed additional time to develop a stronger case before they could file against Google.

While the federal government could sue Google on its own, having states sign on gives a lawsuit more heft and makes it less likely that different prosecutors will produce competing cases.

The Washington Post earlier reported on the plans for today’s meeting.

State attorneys general, meanwhile, embarked on their own bipartisan probe last summer, an inquiry led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican. That effort has broadened considerably since Democratic and Republican state leaders announced their intentions from the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington.

It remains unclear which states may join the Justice Department in any lawsuit it files in the coming days, or whether they could file their own additional complaints. Some Democratic attorneys general also have signaled that they may want to wait until after the 2020 presidential election before deciding their next steps.

Officials at the Justice Department are confronting a divide among state investigators as they look to get attorneys general on board. Some states have pushed to pursue a narrow complaint that can be brought quickly. Another group, led by Colorado’s attorney general, Phil Weiser, a Democrat, has said that states should take more time to create a broad complaint.

Over its 15-month investigation, the Justice Department has branched into multiple lines of inquiry. The agency has conducted interviews with hundreds of companies that have complained that Google harms competition by showcasing its search engine and browser in phones running Android, Google’s mobile operating system.

Its investigation into Google’s control over the online advertising supply chain has produced thousands of pages of internal documents and interviews with media, advertising and tech companies.

But some state attorneys general say the Justice Department’s imminent lawsuit feels premature. The state investigations are still open.

The investigations into Google are part of a larger backlash against the market power of tech giants, including Facebook, Apple and Amazon. With Google, all four are the subject of an investigation by the House Judiciary Committee, which may produce a report as soon as this month. The Justice Department has also been investigating Apple, while the Federal Trade Commission pursues possible cases against Facebook and Amazon.

Republican state attorneys general were also invited to a meeting today at the White House focused on Trump’s push to hold tech platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter responsible for harmful content on their sites and for alleged bias against conservative voices, according to people familiar with the meeting.