Press Release: Statement of the Attorney General on the Announcement of Civil Antitrust Lawsuit Filed Against Google
October 20 2020 - 11:44AM
Dow Jones News
The United States Department of Justice
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2020
WWW.JUSTICE.GOV/NEWS
STATEMENT OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL ON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF CIVIL
ANTITRUST LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST GOOGLE
WASHINGTON - Attorney General William P. Barr released the
following statement:
"This morning the Department of Justice, along with eleven
states, filed a civil lawsuit against Google for unlawfully
maintaining a monopoly in general search services and search
advertising in violation of the U.S. antitrust laws. This is a
monumental case for the Department of Justice and, more
importantly, for the American consumer.
Today, millions of Americans rely on the Internet and online
platforms for their daily lives. For years, there have been broad,
bipartisan concerns about business practices leading to massive
concentrations of economic power in our digital economy. Hearing
those concerns, I have made it a primary commitment of my tenure as
Attorney General for the Department of Justice to examine whether
technology markets have been deprived of free, fair, and open
competition.
To that end, the Department of Justice formally opened a review
of online market-leading platforms in July 2019. One part of this
review is the Antitrust Division's investigation of Google. Over
the course of the last 16 months, the Antitrust Division collected
convincing evidence that Google no longer competes only on the
merits but instead uses its monopoly power - and billions in
monopoly profits - to lock up key pathways to search on mobile
phones, browsers, and next generation devices, depriving rivals of
distribution and scale. The end result is that no one can feasibly
challenge Google's dominance in search and search advertising.
This lack of competition harms users, advertisers, and small
businesses in the form of fewer choices, reduced quality (including
on metrics like privacy), higher advertising prices, and less
innovation.
The complaint filed today against Google is based on violations
of the U.S. antitrust laws and is separate and distinct from
concerns raised about content moderation and political censorship
by online platforms. As part of the Department's broader review of
market-leading online platforms, we listened to myriad public
concerns about how online platforms fail their users. While many of
the concerns we heard were competition-related, others were not -
like online child exploitation, public safety, and censorship.
Outside the Antitrust Division, the Department has considered these
issues separately, including by advocating for Section 230
legislative reforms. Our antitrust investigation of Google, by
contrast, is based solely on traditional antitrust principles and
is aimed at promoting consumer welfare through robust
competition.
Twenty-five years ago, the Department of Justice sued Microsoft,
paving the way for a new wave of innovative tech companies -
including Google. The increased competition following the Microsoft
case enabled Google to grow from a small start-up to an Internet
behemoth. Unfortunately, once Google itself gained dominance, it
resorted to the same anticompetitive playbook. If we let Google
continue its anticompetitive ways, we will lose the next wave of
innovators and Americans may never get to benefit from the "next
Google." The time has come to restore competition to this vital
industry.
Today's challenge against Google - the monopoly gatekeeper of
the Internet - shows the tremendous efforts of the Department, in
particular the hardworking men and women of the Antitrust Division,
and our state partners to restore competition in markets beholden
to an unlawful monopolist. This is an important milestone, but not
the end of our review of market-leading online platforms. The
Department will continue to vigorously investigate and enforce the
antitrust laws where appropriate to protect and promote competition
in the digital economy for the benefit of the American
consumer."
###
The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Department of
Justice. Learn more about the history of our agency at
www.Justice.gov/Celebrating150Years.
AG
20-1126
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the contacts in the message or call the Office of Public Affairs at
202-514-2007.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 20, 2020 11:29 ET (15:29 GMT)
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