While Epic and Apple are battling it out in court over the possible monopoly of the latter, Google will soon be in court for the same reason. But the internet search giant’s accuser is not another company, but the US justice department.
The lawsuit alleges that Google has effectively locked out the competition via a number of business deals. In effect, this makes the company sort of the gatekeeper to the internet for consumers. This is especially the case for mobile users, as justice officials say Chrome is preloaded and cannot be deleted.
The DOJ’s deeply flawed lawsuit would do nothing to help consumers. It could actually raise phone prices, make it harder for people to access the services they want, and artificially prop up lower quality search services. Read our blog post→https://t.co/iNnNL6yvNK
— Google Public Policy (@googlepubpolicy) October 20, 2020
Of course, Google counters this by saying that people use its services because they choose to, rather than because they have to. The company also says that, should the lawsuit go through, it will only prop up lower quality alternatives. It will also end up raising phone prices, the company claims.
At any rate, with the suit filed just yesterday, it will take a very long time before it gets resolved. The Guardian reports that attorney-generals across the US are investigating the company separately from the justice department. The latter is also conducting another investigation into the internet search giant’s ad-tech practices.
(Source: Google, The Guardian)
