The US Department of Justice, today filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming that the company used "illegal" means to exclude its rivals from search engines.
Μa company does not have to act as a monopoly and without any competition to violate antitrust law. Instead, the law mainly investigates the means a company uses to gain that dominance, but also the practices it applies to competition once it is at the top.
So according to the lawsuit filed against it, Google did indeed abuse its market power to exclude all its potential competitors.
"Google is the gateway to the Internet", Said the Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in telephone communication with journalists, and "maintained its power through practical and exclusive agreements that are detrimental to competition."
Google now holds more than 80 percent of all search engine market share, with an even larger share of the mobile search market, according to the lawsuit.
The dominance of the company in the search and the way in which the company utilizes the advertisement through the search, but also the practices that it applies in the browser Chrome and Android operating system for mobile phones, give the company its status keyboardist, while then using unfair practices to keep its competitors out of the search space.
The lawsuit also highlights the way Google's search engine is pre-installed on Android phones by all device makers and distributors through a range of illegal and exclusive contracts. THE European Union imposed a fine on Google with more than 5 billion dollars 2018 for similar Google practices.
As a result of all this, as the lawsuit claims, Google has "hurt substantially»Competition, preventing the entry of competitors who want to offer or increase their own search services. Her actions also resulted in the deterioration of her services Google, as stated in the lawsuit, when there is no competition this automatically means that there is no "significant pressure to improve" its own search or advertising products.
Although the complaint focuses almost exclusively on the search, it is possible that additional information may be added during the proceedings against the company or that they may file a second lawsuit later, saying that the investigation into the effects of competition on the digital market is ongoing, and that Google remains one of the main targets of this research.
The Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and other officials, refused to answer directly to the question whether the Google is in danger of being dissolved as a result of this lawsuit, saying only that “nothing is ruled out", And that all legal remedies available in court will be used.
