Google’s antitrust ruling should increase journalism bills | The Free Press Initiative

The historic antitrust case against Google is far from over, and appeals and deliberations on remedies are likely to last at least another year.

But Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta — finding that Google “is a monopoly and is acting like a monopoly to maintain its monopoly” — should immediately impact legislative proposals aimed at saving local journalism.

Mehta’s ruling confirms that Google did not play fair, causing harm that the government must address.

He said the company broke the law by maintaining a monopoly on search services and general text advertising in the United States, a charge brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of state attorneys general.

Unfair competition from technology gatekeepers is the premise behind Journalism Competition and Protection Acts in Congress and state versions, including a bill that is close to passage in California.

These policies were bolstered by congressional investigations that found that Google and other dominant platforms were using their power in ways that harmed local news industries, making it harder for them to build sustainable online businesses.

After Mehta’s decision, it is no longer easy to dismiss these reports as political, or to dismiss the news industry’s complaints as negative feedback from slow-moving companies left behind by technology innovators.

“For years, Google has dominated, profiting from the hard work and massive investment of publishers while journalism has struggled to survive — all at a time when people need trusted news and information more than ever,” Danielle Coffey, CEO of the News/Media Alliance, said in a statement. “This landmark decision finally recognizes that this is unacceptable and unlawful, that Google must be held accountable, and competition must be restored to the marketplace.”

The trade group lobbied for the JCPA, which was introduced by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar with Republican co-sponsors. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 14-7 vote in June 2023, but expectations for passage before 2025 were low because of the electoral pressures.

Klobuchar issued a statement saying Mehta’s ruling “is a major victory for the American people,” but her office did not respond to my question about whether it would strengthen the JCPA.

Coffey told me in an email that she is “cautiously optimistic about current discussions with lawmakers.”

A bill in California is moving closer to passage after being approved by the state legislature, but it still faces strong opposition from Google and its allies.

Similar laws have been introduced in Australia and Canada, but they have been watered down by lawmakers who are sympathetic to the platforms and respond to their fierce lobbying efforts.

But the conversation starts somewhere else, since Google is a convicted monopolist in its home country.

Google’s products are valued and its contributions to the world are incredible, but there are serious problems with its business practices.

If tech companies win by competing fairly, so be it. If they don’t, and they break the law to maintain their stronghold, the government needs to step in and make sure others have a decent chance at success.

Even more important for news publishers could be Google’s next big antitrust case, which concerns Google’s dominance in digital advertising technology. It’s set to go to trial on September 9.

If Google is also found to be monopolizing digital ad technology, remedies should directly address harm to news publishers, who the Justice Department says have been defrauded by the search giant for years.

But the news industry cannot wait years for these lawsuits to finally be resolved, especially given the current number of layoffs and closures.

Legislation like the JCPA and the California Journalism Preservation Act are needed to immediately rebalance the relationship between local news outlets and the platforms they depend on to reach readers and advertisers online.

Axios layoffs: Virginia-based digital news company Axios plans to lay off about 10% of its staff, or about 50 people, The New York Times reports.

Some of the affected employees are part of Axios’ network of free, local newsletters, which combines aggregation of others’ work and reporting by a few employees in the cities they serve. Two Seattle reporters are not affected.

Adweek reports that Axios slowed its local newsletter expansion last year after it missed revenue targets.

CEO Jim VandeHei told employees that the layoffs are happening because of “fragmented reader attention, new rivals targeting the company and its talent, and artificial intelligence models capable of summarizing news,” according to The New York Times.

Tampa layoffs: The Tampa Bay Times, an award-winning newspaper owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute for Media Studies, is asking employees to consider severance pay in connection with a planned 20% pay cut. If savings goals are not met, the layoffs will take place at the end of this month, the newspaper reported.

The newspaper made several rounds of cuts in 2020, moving to two days a week for print delivery and temporarily cutting pay during the pandemic. It then outsourced printing and cut more jobs in 2021, the article noted.

This is an excerpt from the free weekly newsletter Voices for a Free Press. Sign up for it at Save the Free Press, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about the issues facing newspapers, local news reporting and the free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative or sign up for the newsletter at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.