Google's antitrust liabilities continue to grow and proliferate, even if many have not yet connected the dots to recognize this ominous and increasingly obvious pattern facing Google.
- Earlier this month myTrigger, a vertical search competitor sued Google in Ohio Court over violations of the Ohio Valentine Antitrust Act and asked for a jury trial and treble damages for being put out of business when Google raised the minimum bid for its keywords by 1,000-10,000%. They have a compelling argument and strong evidence of monopolistic behavior by Google.
- Last month, three antitrust complaints were filed against Google in Germany per Bloomberg where Google has 90% market share. This makes clear that Google's antitrust liabilities are proliferating globally which is ominous given that the EU has been tougher on American companies than the U.S. DOJ/FTC and given that Google is even more dominant in Europe than America.
- Last year, TradeComet sued Google in Federal District Court of New York alleging violations of both the Clayton and Sherman Antitrust Acts, and asked for a jury trial and treble damages. They also have a compelling case full of evidence of anticompetitive behavior by Google.
- For the last five months the DOJ has been objecting to the Google Book Settlement pending in U.S. Federal Court because the DOJ believes the proposed settlement breaks antitrust laws among others.
- Last year the FTC investigated Google and Apple under the Clayton Antitrust Act for Google's and Apple's overlapping directorates.
- In 2008, the DOJ blocked the Google-Yahoo ad Agreement as anticompetitive and the DOJ reportedly was prepared to file a Sherman Section 1 & 2 case against Google if it did not withdraw from the agreement.
- The FTC asked for a second request of information on Google's proposed acquisition of AdMob, the leading mobile advertising marketplace, in order to determine if the transaction would violate antitrust laws by "substantially lessening competition."
- Most recently, February 18, 2010, the U.S. DOJ and the EU antitrust authorities approved the Microsoft-Yahoo combination of Google's #1 & #2 competitors, because the DOJ and EU both view Google as a monopoly in need of more competition.
These are not random dots; they all connect to show a growing and proliferating pattern of antitrust liability for Google. Even more ominous for Google is that these dots span both the Bush and Obama Administrations, both the US and European jurisidctions, and both Federal and State U.S. court jurisdictions.
- Simply, Google has a big and growing antitrust liability problem.
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Google's proliferating antitrust liabilities series:
Part I: Google faces three antitrust cases in Germany
Googleopoly Series:
Why Google is a monopoly: Presenting the case before the Federalist Society.
Googleopoly V: "Why the FTC should block Google-AdMob"
Googleopoly IV: "How Google extends its search monopoly to monopsony over digital information"
Googleopoly III: "Dependency: The crux of the Google-Yahoo ad agreement problem"
Googleopoly II: "Google's Predatory Playbook to Thwart Competition"
Googleopoly I: "The Google-DoubleClick anticompetitive case"
