Google Will Not Move To Dismiss US Antitrust Case

Matthew Broersma,
Google cloud

Google tells court it does not intend to move to dismiss landmark US antitrust case, as company and Justice Department prepare opening moves

Google has told a court it does not plan to ask for the US government’s antitrust lawsuit to be dismissed, but intends to fight the allegations.

The US Department of Justice sued Google over alleged competition abuses in October, saying the company had illegally used its market dominance in search and advertising to hobble rivals. Google has denied wrongdoing.

On Friday Google said in a short court filing that it would refrain from filing to dismiss the lawsuit and would file an answer to the government’s complaint before 21 December.

Google and the Justice Department said they had failed to reach an agreement on how to protect confidential information supplied to the government by third parties, and would file statements on their positions by 13 November.

googleAntitrust

The case is the biggest challenge to a dominant tech company in decades, and has been compared to the Justice Department’s successful antitrust case against Microsoft of 1998 or its breakup of AT&T in the 1980s.

US communications regulator the FTC is also considering filing an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, according to reports.

The FTC’s five members met on 22 October, shortly after the Justice Department filed its lawsuit against Google, to discuss its investigation of Facebook and whether the company had acquired competitors such as WhatsApp and Instagram in order to maintain its monopoly, according to multiple reports.

Tech dominance

Earlier in October the House Judiciary Committee recommended taking action to break up the big tech platforms, including Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google, which together have a market value of around $5tn.

The US Senate Commerce Committee has also been looking into whether to make changes to a law that grants tech platforms legal immunity for their content moderation decisions.

In October Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, Google chief Sundar Pichai and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the panel to face questions on the issue.