It is a truth universally acknowledged that a technology monopolist with vast fortunes needs a lawsuit from the United States government to learn how to behave in society. This is the only way to explain why the media is proclaiming these events as “the most significant verdict on technological power in the modern Internet age,” while the European Commission…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a technology monopolist with vast fortunes needs a lawsuit from the United States government to learn how to behave in society. This is the only way to explain why the media calls these events “the most significant trial of technological power in the modern Internet age,” when the European Commission has repeatedly sued, fined and partially corrected Google for abusing its market position and distorting it to yours Favor. As if there hadn’t been a case like this since 1998, when the North American government sued Microsoft for abusing its privileges by launching a browser called Explorer by embedding it by default in its operating system. Until last Tuesday, when his trial against Google began for doing the same thing to its search engine.
The US Department of Justice accuses the search engine of “maintaining its monopoly power through exclusionary practices that harm competition.” Practices like entering into exclusive contracts with other companies to be the only visible chicken leg at the buffet. Back then, Microsoft struck deals with hardware manufacturers to sell their Windows computers. The operating system had Explorer installed by default, which eliminated Netscape Navigator, its main competitor, from the map. Google, in turn, pays around 14 billion a year to its arch enemy to become the default search engine for the iPhone. It is not illegal to be a monopolist in the United States, as liberal journalists have reminded us every day this week, lest anyone believe that communists are running the country. But buying a place to stay at the top is like implementing constitutional reforms to stay in power. Google can only be a monopoly if consumers choose it, and for that to happen, consumers must have a choice.
Europe sued and won that lawsuit, but it’s more interesting when the United States does this. Not just because they are American companies. Firstly, because he is your main partner. The U.S. government funds, uses, and depends on Google’s infrastructure across all of its departments, from defense to healthcare to education, energy, and the space program. Secondly, because you have access to your processes that no one else has.
For this reason, too, no one expects the Joe Biden administration to make grand gestures that will damage its most important instrument of soft power. Even if, as some dare, they wanted to pressure the tech companies, there is what I call the problem of infinite lawyers. Monopolies have infinite money to pay infinite lawyers and appeal infinite times until they achieve the ideal result. The administrations do not do this. In November 1999, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson concluded that Microsoft had engaged in anticompetitive practices and ordered the company to be split into two companies: one for the operating system and one for software applications, including the browser. Microsoft appealed. If we had managed that, giants like Google, Amazon, Apple or Microsoft would no longer exist today.
