Google monetizes the amount people use it with ads, which generate around $40billion in revenue every yearģ) Spending its billions to cement its dominance with 'exclusionary deals' In 2020, it accounted for 94% of all mobile searches in the US Google, through both its deals placing its search engine above others on devices and through public interest in it, accounts for 80 percent of every internet search in the US There are three facets to how the government claims it does this The Department of Justice lawsuit claims that Google is breaching The Sherman Act by unfairly locking up portions of the market. The DoJ is invoking The Sherman Act which is designed to stop businesses from blocking competitors from the market. 'This lawsuit claims that Americans aren’t sophisticated enough to do this.
Bias amp 2 demo restrictions install#
'This isn't the dial-up 1990s when changing services was slow and difficult, and often required you to buy and install software with a CD-ROM,' Walker said. The response is likely to enrage Republicans and investigators, who have spent the last 16 months investigating the case. He picked apart the government's lawsuit by subject, starting with the laws it is trying to claim Google is breaking, calling them 'dubious' and saying it was 'trivially easy' to change your internet browser. On Tuesday afternoon, Google's SVP of Global Affairs, Kent Walker, published the response to the lawsuit in which he said it was 'trivially easy' to change an internet browser and that the Justice Department was 'deeply flawed'. It poses serious questions over the power of big tech, which is coming under increased scrutiny under the Trump administration, and what rights the government has to control or limit it. Google responded to the Department of Justice's bombshell antitrust lawsuit on Tuesday with a condescending memo showing people how 'trivially easy' it is to change their browsers and claiming Americans choose to use their platform instead of being forced to.Įarly on Tuesday, the Department of Justice and the Republican Attorneys General of 11 states filed their lawsuit claiming Google has for years operated unlawfully to control the internet and squash competitors, depriving the market of competition and consumers of innovation and choice.
They have most recently been accused of using their powers to promote left-wing political agendas.Google, Facebook and Twitter have all come under increased scrutiny under Trump's administration.They said it was 'trivially easy' to change an internet browser and said Americans were sophisticated to choose for themselves which browser to use.Google called the lawsuit 'deeply flawed' and said people used Google because they wanted to.It makes it impossible for any other search engine to compete and deprives consumers of innovation and choice, the government said.It uses money from the ad revenue to form 'exclusionary' agreements with smartphone companies to make sure it is the go-to search engine on devices, the suit claims.
Because Google is the preferred advertising platform among businesses, it makes billions in ad revenue.