Dozens of states file anti-trust suit against Google
DENVER » Dozens of states filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google on Thursday, alleging the search giant has an illegal monopoly over the online search market that hurts consumers and advertisers
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington by attorneys general of 35 states as well as the District of Columbia and the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico.
“Consumers are denied the benefits of competition, including the possibility of higher quality services and better privacy protections. Advertisers are harmed through lower quality and higher prices that are, in turn, passed along to consumers,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in announcing the action.
In a blog post, Google’s director of economic policy, Adam Cohen, said big companies should be scrutinized and Google was prepared to answer questions about how it works.
“But this lawsuit seeks to redesign search in ways that would deprive Americans of helpful information and hurt businesses’ ability to connect directly with customers. We look forward to making that case in court, while remaining focused on delivering a high- quality search experience for our users,” he said.
The case is the third antitrust salvo to slam Google during the past two months as the U. S. Department of
Justice and attorneys general from across the U. S. weigh in with their different variations on how they believe the company is abusing its immense power to do bad things that harm other businesses, innovation and even consumers who find its services to be indispensable.
“There’s not been a cluster of cases of this significance since the 1970s,” said William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University and a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, pointing to the recent spate of antitrust actions by the states, the Justice Department and the FTC. “This is a big deal.”
The DOJ brought an antitrust suit against AT&T in 1974 that led to its breakup.
In many ways, the flurry of U. S. antitrust suits represent an attempt to catch up with European regulators who have spent the past several years trying to crack down on Google, mostly with huge fines, to little noticeable effect so far.
The latest lawsuit echoes the allegations brought by the federal government but goes beyond them by seeking to stop Google from becoming dominant in the latest generation of technology, such as voice assistant devices and internetconnected cars, as well as claiming that the company discriminates against specialized search providers that provide travel, home repair and entertainment services, and denies access to its search- advertising management tool, SA360, to competitors such as Bing.