The big Google DOJ antitrust case probably won’t go to trial until 2023
The Justice Department’s historic lawsuit against Google is moving along — albeit very, very slowly. In a status hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta set a tentative date for the case. The good news and the bad news for both parties involved is that it’s more than two years away.
As CNBC reports, Mehta chose September 12, 2023 as the first day of the trial, which is expected to last weeks. That date could change, but with both the Justice Department and Google agreeing to that timeline it’s a pretty good estimate.
It might be years before the trial, but the DOJ’s lawsuit against Google, filed in October, is already hanging over Silicon Valley’s head. The suit focuses on Google’s search and ads business and accuses the company of maintaining illegal monopolies in those markets. A date in 2023 gives Google plenty of time to sharpen its defenses and do what it wants until then, but it also means the specter of a major regulatory threat will loom large for the foreseeable future.
States are also pursuing their own aggressive efforts to regulate the search giant, with two separate major multistate lawsuits similarly focused on Google’s search and advertising power filed this week. Last week, the state of California also asked to join the Justice Department’s lawsuit, with Michigan and Wisconsin following suit on Thursday.
“Their proposed joinder, along with the separate complaint filed today by a coalition of state Attorneys General, underscores the broad and bipartisan consensus that Google’s practices in search and search advertising need antitrust redress,” Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen said of the states deciding to join the suit.
The historic case is the first major federal antitrust action to hit a technology company since the U.S. pursued a case against Microsoft more than two decades ago. That case was settled in 2001, just three years after Google’s founding.
With few regulations in place to rein it in, the tech industry exploded over the course of the last 20 years. Silicon Valley’s innovations are now woven into every market and corner of society imaginable, making the era of the Microsoft antitrust saga looks downright quaint in comparison.
The Justice Department’s historic lawsuit against Google is moving along — albeit very, very slowly. In a status hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta set a tentative date for the case. The good news and the bad news for both parties involved is that it’s more than two years…
Recent Posts
- Quordle today – hints and answers for Monday, April 22 (game #819)
- NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Monday, April 22 (game #50)
- Why is Windows 11 so got dang annoying?
- AMD teams up with Arm to unveil AI chip family that does preprocessing, inference and postprocessing on one silicon — but you will have to wait more than 12 months to get actual products
- The US takes another big step towards banning TikTok – here’s what you need to know
Archives
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011