On October 8, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the attorneys general (AG) of each U.S. state as well as the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico filed a proposed framework for redress in the lawsuit federal antitrust case against Internet services giant Google currently underway. pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Although the proposed solutions could change based on the findings, the framework includes several measures that would prohibit Google from self-preferring its search engine platform over its products and certain contractual behaviors that harm search engine competition competitors.

The DOJ’s proposed remedial framework follows U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling two months later in favor of the AG plaintiffs that Google’s search and advertising practices violated Section 2 of the Act. antitrust Sherman. Although Judge Mehta refrained from imposing sanctions against Google, his post-trial ruling found that Google’s exclusive distribution agreements gave rise to antitrust liability under two counts raised in the complaint amended from AG plaintiffs.

The future impact of generative AI on search engines complicates the remedial situation

Citing the DC Circuit’s 2001 decision in United States v. MicrosoftThe DOJ noted that a legal remedy must free markets from Google’s conduct, remove barriers to competition, deprive Google of the fruits of its violation of the law, and prevent Google’s future monopolization of these markets. Regarding future forms of monopolization, the DOJ filing highlights that the situation is complicated by the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), which is set to become an important aspect of the search engine industry in the years to come.

The remedies proposed in the DOJ’s recently filed framework would address four distinct categories of harm related to Google’s business practices: search distribution and revenue sharing; generation and display of search results; advertising scale and monetization; and the accumulation and use of data. Because discovery is pending in the district court case, the AG plaintiffs note that the remedies proposed therein could change, although the DOJ expects the remedies in a final judgment mutually reinforcing.

Most of the DOJ’s proposed remedies target Google’s effects on the search distribution and revenue sharing market. The DOJ notes that Google’s control over search distribution is supported by the company’s ability to discourage any diversion of queries to competing search engines through revenue sharing payments. In addition to prohibiting these agreements, the AG plaintiffs are evaluating remedies that could limit Google’s ability to enter into default or pre-installation agreements. They also seek to limit Google’s ability to itself favor Google’s search engine over other Google products, including Chrome and Android, and could require Google to contribute to educational awareness campaigns to highlight aspects competitiveness of competing research products.

Technical committee funded by Google, AI opt-outs are among the proposed remedies

To counter Google’s monopolistic use of search engine data, the DOJ framework proposes that Google make available the indexes and models used for Google Search, as well as the underlying search results and ranking figures , either in their entirety or via an application programming interface (API). The DOJ is also considering solutions where Google should allow websites to opt out of any Google AI product, such as Augmented Retrieval Generation summaries, which combine traditional search tools with the capabilities of large language models.

In response to Google’s impact on advertisers’ choice of search providers, the proposed framework suggests syndicating Google’s advertising feed independent of search results and requiring Google to provide detailed reporting on search queries to advertisers. Finally, to prevent circumvention of the DOJ’s proposed remedies, the AG plaintiffs are considering additional measures that would require Google to fund and report to a court-appointed technical committee, appoint a senior executive to report on the Google’s compliance and to prohibit Google from having any stake in its search competitors.

Google’s anti-competitive business behavior in Internet services has come under increasing scrutiny in the United States and the European Union. Last September, Google failed to win a reprieve from a 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators over its price comparison service , although the Big Tech kingpin won an appeal for a fine of 1.5 billion euros ($1.66 billion). for its online advertising services.

In the United States, antitrust experts have raised concerns about the impacts of the DOJ’s proposed antitrust remedies. Alden Abbott, a researcher at the Mercatus Center and former counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, observed that measures intended to help Google’s competitors could have negative effects on consumers:

“The problem with the DOJ’s remedy memo is that while it assumes monopoly issues in these four areas, it overlooks the importance of ensuring that remedies do not unnecessarily harm the competitive process and slow down innovation. A balanced analysis would have discussed the potential costs and explained how the court could weigh the costs against the benefits in seeking to arrive at an optimal set of remedies.

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Author: Alexeynovikov
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