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“Google prevents competitors from entering the market”
The biggest after the ‘MS lawsuit’ in the 90s
The US Department of Justice has filed an antitrust suit against Google, a global information and communications (IT) company.
On the 20th (local time), the Financial Times (FT) reported that the United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in Federal Court in Washington that day. According to the complaint, the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit with the attorneys general from 11 states.
This lawsuit is the largest since the antitrust lawsuit filed by the United States government against Microsoft in the 1990s. Bloomberg said: “The United States Department of Justice has been the most critical of antitrust lawsuits against American companies for the past minus 20 years, maybe 100 years. “
The US Department of Justice reportedly claims that Google is blocking competitors from entering the market. A US Justice Department official told The Wall Street Journal: “The Google app is preloaded on Android phones and cannot be removed, preventing other companies from entering the market.”
The US Department of Justice has been conducting antitrust investigations targeting Google’s search department. Google is the default search engine for Android and Apple iOS, which are mobile operating systems (OS). In desktop browsers, it is used as the default search engine in Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox. Therefore, it is noted that the market is basically dominant. Google’s share of the US online search market is approximately 80%.
In June of last year, the US Department of Justice launched an investigation into Google’s core business, including search. In July of that year, an investigation was launched into acts of interference in competition against Google, Amazon and Facebook.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also shared the antitrust investigation. In February, the FTC asked Google’s parent company Alphabet to submit data on mergers and acquisitions for the past 10 years. The US Department of Justice and the FTC are reported to have investigated the process to achieve market dominance by these companies and whether they undermined competition and harmed the interests of consumers.
The issue of antitrust behavior by IT dinosaur companies has been constantly raised inside and outside of politics, like the United States Congress. In July, Republican lawmakers called the CEOs of four major IT companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, and held an antitrust hearing.
Bloomberg said: “If the US Department of Justice and Google cannot reach a settlement, it will take more than a year for the lawsuit to go to trial.”
Reporter Sun Han-gyeol [email protected]
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