The justice department has accused Google of using its market power to unfairly lock out rivals and position itself as a gatekeeper of the web. The case marks the first brought by the government against Google to go to trial. The justice department has also joined a separate case against Google brought by the attorneys general of 38 states and territories over monopoly concerns in advertising.

Google has denied wrongdoing in both cases and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The justice department did not immediately comment.

In filings unsealed last month, Judge Amit P Mehta tossed out a handful of charges brought against Google, narrowing the case in a slight victory for the company. He said Google was not required to defend itself against charges that the design of its search results page has harmed rivals such as Expedia or Yelp.

Still, Mehta allowed some of the more significant charges to proceed, including key arguments that Google’s exclusive contracts with phone manufacturers allegedly harmed competitors. The department alleges the company pays billions each year to “secure default status for its general search engine and, in many cases, to specifically prohibit Google’s counterparties from dealing with Google’s competitors”.

    • kubica@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      All I’ve been seeing lately is news about possible actions against this big corporations, while they keep rolling out questionable stuff like nothing is happening.

        • PlexSheep@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          Wouldn’t say so. The people that care are the kind of people they would want to work for them otherwise in many cases. Techies, CS people.

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It’s still a step in the right direction, and the justice department better get used to it because there’s a LOT of corporations that need taken down a peg

    • Detheroth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What do you mean? A fine equivalent to 0.001% of their profit is going to cripple them! They might have to fire more staff just to stay afloat. Poor Google.

      Gatekeep and track everything. Pay the pennies to the law and keep raking in the profits.