DOJ

What did the Senate confirmation hearing for President Trump’s nominee to head up the DOJ Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, tell us that’s relevant to the biggest pending global antitrust issue -- Google?

A lot.

Google is no longer politically protected from antitrust investigation in the U.S.

Let’s learn why.

It has gone from likely to clear that Makan Delrahim, will be the antitrust lead in handling the most consequential U.S and international antitrust matters, like Google, in the Trump Administration.

The hearing affirmed Mr. Delrahim is very well-known, highly-respected, and enjoys bipartisan support on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He received bipartisan letters of endorsement from 12 previous DOJ Antitrust Chiefs and all the Commissioners he served with on the Antitrust Modernization Commission.

In addition, as Deputy White House Counsel for nominations, who also shepherded Supreme Court Nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, through the Senate confirmation process, he obviously enjoys the strongest trust, respect, and support from President Trump and Attorney General Sessions.

Tellingly, it is mid-May and we don’t have a nominee for FTC Chairperson.

Please don’t miss my latest The Hill op-ed:   “Google’s ad blocking exposes the company’s hypocrisy on net neutrality” (& copyright).  

There are potentially big implications for Google, complainants, and antitrust authorities around the world, from Google’s antitrust settlement with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS)

FAS previously ruled officially, and was upheld by the Russian Supreme Court, that Google-Android illegally abused its dominance in forcing handset manufacturers to strongly preference Google search and other apps, as a contractual requirement to license Google’s official Android operating system.

In this settlement, Google agrees to a variety of significant Android/Chrome behavior changes that, if they work in practice as represented, will enable other search engines, like Yandex, and app developers to have significantly more competitive opportunities in Russia. The arbitration agreement is for six years and nine months and comes with a fine of ~$7.8m -- the equivalent of 46 minutes of Google’s annual revenues.

What Google gets in return, is big brand protection in that it can claim: a) the settlement was voluntary; b) there is now no more Russian official finding/legal precedent that Google is dominant or a monopoly, or has done anything wrong (even though it officially did before this superseding settlement); and c) a Google-Android antitrust settlement template that Google can shop to other countries, (that is friendly to Google in that Google knows this settlement won’t be as effective elsewhere, because other countries sans China and South Korea, do not have a material competitive mobile search offering to Google like Russia’s Yandex.)

The evidence is compelling that the DOJ will replace the FTC as the lead Sherman Act antitrust enforcer on the biggest Google antitrust matters during the Trump Administration.

A huge action forcing event for the Trump DOJ Antitrust Division is coming, most likely this June/July, when EU antitrust authorities most likely will conclude the first of three antitrust cases against Alphabet-Google, and officially rule Google is a 90+% search monopoly that has anticompetitively abused its monopoly position in search, and impose a traditional monopoly nondiscrimination principle remedy that Google treat its shopping comparison competitors as it treats itself.

While conventional wisdom assumes the FTC will continue as the Google antitrust lead, that is very unlikely to continue, because of two Google antitrust gamechangers, the replacement of President Obama with President Trump, and the EU’s coming official antitrust conclusion that Google is in fact a monopoly that acts anticompetitively in over 30% of the world.

Since so much flows from the baseline assumption of which U.S. entity will be the Google antitrust lead, the DOJ or FTC, it warrants closest examination.

Summary of six reasons DOJ will take the Google antitrust lead from FTC

(1) Institutionally, DOJ is the United States’ antitrust lawyer and the official liaison with other countries.

Conclusions:

Most of what we have learned in the five months since the election indicates that the Trump Administration is not going to be Google’s antitrust advocate and protector like the Obama Administration effectively was from 2013-2016, in de facto shutting down any real U.S. antitrust scrutiny of Google, and in turn implicitly discouraging antitrust enforcement of Google in the EU and around the world.  

This antitrust enforcement sea change has three big picture implications: for the EU, for the U.S., and for markets.

President Trump’s impressive nominee to head the DOJ Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, enters the global antitrust stage when one company, America’s Alphabet-Google, has been under near constant antitrust investigation around the world for a decade and faces multiple pending antitrust enforcement actions.

What is the global and U.S. antitrust community to glean from this nomination?

Mr. Delrahim’s background speaks volumes, especially if one believes the adage, people are policy.

Overall, Makan Delrahim is a widely-respected, veteran antitrust official, attorney, expert, and professor, with high-level antitrust experience that check all the right boxes, organizationally, functionally, and professionally.

Mr. Delrahim’s antitrust-specific experience is outstanding.

By far the biggest competition problem facing U.S. antitrust and regulatory authorities is the Goobook Ad Cartel, the unaccountable dominant chokepoint for monetizing most online news, content, products and services.

The evidence is compelling that Google and Facebook have colluded to divide up and corner the online advertising market, and consequently, have deterred competition, devalued property and work, dehumanized privacy, and depressed economic growth and employment.

This unprecedented market power and winner-take-all outcome in such a vital sector of the economy is a direct result of purposeful U.S. non-enforcement of antitrust laws for online platforms, and the lavishment of most every public policy advantage upon them that one could imagine. 

Let’s first examine Google and Facebook’s massive monopolies, then their collusion, and then who is harmed and how.

Google & Facebook’s Massive Monopolies

Apparently America does not have “equal justice under law” when it comes to media concentration limits.

Seldom can one find a starker commercial example of unequal legal, law enforcement, and regulatory treatment of very similar commercial activities than that between old media and Internet/new media companies concerning media concentration and antitrust enforcement.

Both legacy old media companies and Internet/new media companies are in the communications business, own and/or produce media of some type, and distribute media in different physical ways, consumption formats, and time/situation dimensions.

Please see this one-page graphic that illustrates how America’s media concentration double standard treats similar old and new media companies completely dissimilarly, and how it results in a predictable stark market share dichotomy.  

Ultimately old media concentration has been limited by the traditional antitrust limits that apply to all industries and companies over the years.

That’s no longer true for Big-Internet companies like Google and Facebook.

Please don’t miss my latest Daily Caller op-ed: “How U.S. Internet Commons Policies Lessen Growth Jobs & Security.”

It spotlights how U.S. Internet commons policies – where “free” means a price of zero and “open” means no property -- create winner-take all economic outcomes for the Netstablishment at the expense of everyone else.

Google’s unprecedented Obama Administration influence and its self-serving anti-employment, anti-property, and pro-regulatory policy agenda, are on a collision course with the job-creating, pro-property, deregulatory Trump Administration growth agenda.

Keep watch to see who adapts to whom and how.

I.  Google’s Unprecedented Lobbying Influence

Current Alphabet-Google Chairman Eric Schmidt enjoys the privilege of being the only corporate leader of a publicly-traded company on the President’s nineteen member Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.