The senator is right to demand a renewed antitrust investigation of the tech behemoth

Posted by The Financial Times

The senator is right to demand a renewed antitrust investigation of the tech behemoth

By Rana Forooh 

Every twenty years or so, a major antitrust case reshapes the business landscape, curbing the inevitable excesses of the dominant corporate players and allowing the next generation of innovators to be born.

So, it’s worth noting three things in this edition of Swamp Notes.

First, Tuesday is Google’s 20th birthday. Second, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin might want to send a slice of cake to Bill Gates, since it was arguably the US v Microsoft antitrust case 17 years ago, in which Microsoft was ultimately disallowed from bundling Windows and Explorer, that allowed their search giant to become the behemoth that it is today. Had Microsoft been allowed to dominate the burgeoning internet ecosystem back then the way Google dominates search today, then we might not have reached my third point — which is that Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is right to call for the re-opening of the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against Google from 2013.

As anyone who read the original leaked documents from 2012 knows, the case — which was dismissed by the FTC — was a close call to begin with. Key FTC staffers wanted to sue the search giant, and no wonder — many of its top brass, like chief economist Hal Varian and former executive Marissa Mayer, come off as being quite happy to prioritise Google over competitors in ways that are anti-competitive. While the case was ultimately dismissed, there are many sources I’ve spoken with who feel that was down to Google’s lobbying power in Washington. Hatch’s call for a reopening of the case will undoubtedly be politicised, thanks to President Donald Trump’s big tech witch hunt. (The President is, no surprise, muddying the waters by accusing the search giant of burying conservative news.) But Hatch’s call is legit. For starters, he cites Democratic colleagues’ calls for investigation, as well as bipartisan letters from state attorneys-general. Hatch himself is well versed in antitrust issues, having been one of the Microsoft agitators way back when, and has had tough exchanges with former FTC chair Edith Ramirez over Google.

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