Judge gets Google antitrust ruling wrong

From CEI.

"A federal judge ruled today that Google violated antitrust law, declaring “Google is a monopolist” in online search. Competitive Enterprise Institute antitrust, legal, and economic experts criticized the ruling and explained where the ruling went wrong.

Jessica Melugin, Director of CEI’s Center for Technology & Innovation:

“Today’s decision pretends that defaults aren’t easy for users to change, which they are. Google was believed by Apple to provide the best value, but if customers disagree, it takes about 30 seconds for them to switch to their preferred search tool. The default contract was a competitive, private process that likely reduced costs for phone purchasers. That benefit is now in question.”

Dan Greenberg, CEI General Counsel:

“Judge Mehta has decided that Google has monopoly power in its text ads, but that decision is wrong. If there were no reason for people to choose Google, they wouldn’t. The reason people use Google isn’t because of monopoly power; it’s because the company offers something people like. Sometimes courts are not very good at understanding how markets work.”

Ryan Young, CEI Senior Economist:

“The Court’s decision relies on a special definition of Google’s relevant market that excludes, by name, most of its competitors. Under that definition Google has a monopoly over its own search and advertising features in the same way that Apple has a monopoly over Apple-branded products and McDonald’s has a monopoly over Big Macs.

“Digital ad prices have fallen since Google became one of the dominant players in advertising. If Google had real-world monopoly power, those prices would be going up. Other companies like Meta, TikTok, and Amazon would also not have been able to grow their market shares ever since this lawsuit was filed four years ago.”"