The government’s antitrust case against Google just got significantly smaller. In a filing on Friday, a US district court judge dismissed several of the claims that the Department of Justice and a coalition of states brought against the company, including allegations that Google Search harms competing services.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a filing on Friday, a US district court judge dismissed several of the claims that the Department of Justice and a coalition of states brought against the company, including allegations that Google Search harms competing services.
The decision stems from a pair of lawsuits that the DOJ and a group of 38 state attorneys general filed against Google in 2020.
The suit accuses Google of anti-competitive behavior on a number of fronts, including designing its search engine to disadvantage competitors like Yelp, Expedia, and Tripadvisor.
However, Judge Amit Mehta threw out this claim, stating that the government’s proof of anti-competitive harm “relies not on evidence but almost entirely on the opinion and speculation of its expert” that it cited in its suit, law professor Jonathan Baker.
Mehta also dropped the DOJ’s accusations related to the agreements Google makes with developers and Android phone makers because the government abandoned the allegations.
Google filed a motion to dismiss the suit late last year and is facing a separate lawsuit from the DOJ over its grip on the online advertisements market.
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