The Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to break up Google as an illegal monopoly, according to court documents that reveal the latest Biden-Harris administration strategies to rein in the tech industry.
Government lawyers included the idea in a Tuesday night court filing that also suggested restricting Google’s artificial intelligence from plundering data from other websites. As another option, it proposed blocking the Silicon Valley company from paying billions of dollars to Apple to keep its search engine the default setting on iPhone and Mac computers.
“For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little-to-no incentive to compete for users,” the attorneys wrote in the filing. “Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow.”
In a Wednesday blog post that a Google spokesperson emailed to The Washington Times, the company pledged to “respond in detail to the DOJ’s ultimate proposal” in a court case scheduled to begin next spring.
“We believe that today’s blueprint goes well beyond the legal scope of the court’s decision about search distribution contracts,” wrote Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president for regulatory affairs. “Government overreach in a fast-moving industry may have negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.”
Ms. Mulholland said such consequences would include ruining the online advertising market, increasing the cost of popular Android and Chrome devices, and making users’ search histories less private and secure.
“The DOJ’s outline also comes at a time when competition in how people find information is blooming, with all sorts of new entrants emerging and new technologies like AI transforming the industry,” she said.
Tuesday’s filing is part of a yearslong legal campaign by the Biden-Harris administration to regulate tech companies such as Google, Apple, TikTok, Ticketmaster and Amazon that it has accused of using deceptive and monopolistic practices to control their markets.
In an August ruling, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta accused Google of leveraging its search engine dominance illegally to stifle competition. Judge Mehta, an Obama appointee who will oversee the spring trial, has promised to issue a decision in the case by August.
President Biden has made regulating big companies, including the tech industry, a signature issue.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a former San Francisco politician with ties to Silicon Valley, has been silent during her Democratic presidential campaign on whether she will continue Mr. Biden’s movement against certain business practices if she is elected on Nov. 5.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has signaled stronger support for tech companies. He has earned the endorsement of X owner Elon Musk and chose Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, a former tech industry investor, as his running mate.
Neither campaign responded to a request for comment.
As federal regulators prepare to release a more detailed list of potential remedies for the Google case next month, the Biden-Harris administration is juggling several lawsuits against other Big Tech companies:
• A federal judge ruled last week that the Federal Trade Commission could move forward with a lawsuit it filed against Amazon last year. The suit accuses the online retail giant of exercising a monopoly “to inflate prices, degrade quality and stifle innovation for consumers and businesses.”
• A ruling is pending on a separate 2021 FTC lawsuit against Facebook parent company Meta that seeks to revoke its acquisition of the popular apps Instagram and WhatsApp. Federal regulators have argued that the acquisition created an illegal monopoly over social networking; Meta claims the apps help the company compete with rivals such as X and TikTok.
• The Justice Department filed a March lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of illegally stifling competitors from developing iPhone application software. A federal court is scheduled to hear oral arguments Nov. 20 on Apple’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
The Justice Department also has filed a second monopoly lawsuit against Google that claims the company uses an illegal monopoly over online advertising technology to inflate prices for advertisers and online publishers.
Like other tech companies, Google says it has worked fairly to stave off potential competitors. Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for Nov. 25 in an Alexandria, Virginia, courtroom.
Some scholars reached for comment noted that Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the nation’s first antitrust law, in 1890. That statute outlawed any two parties conspiring with each other “in restraint of trade.”
In 1894, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could use that law against labor unions, which it deemed “illegal combinations” when workers boycotted companies.
“There were a lot of people, historically on the left, who did not support antitrust because they thought concentrated capital would let them pay workers more,” said Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University historian and expert on the labor movement.
After years of companies using the Sherman Act to stifle organized labor, the federal government exempted unions from antitrust laws in 1914.
Liberals have since embraced antitrust legislation as an effective tool for breaking up large companies they suspect of enforcing illegal monopolies, trusts and cartels to maximize profits.
During her campaign, Ms. Harris has endorsed Mr. Biden’s push to rein in big corporations with government controls on rent and grocery prices. She also has praised the president’s record more broadly.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she said during an interview with ABC’s “The View” this week when asked if she would change any of Mr. Biden’s policies.
The vice president has not said a word about the administration’s ongoing mission against Silicon Valley, however.
Despite the more recent popularity of antitrust laws among liberals, Georgetown’s Mr. Kazin said he’s not surprised that Ms. Harris has stayed quiet about Democrat-led efforts to crush Big Tech companies.
“She’s trying to keep those people on her side, not just tech billionaires but also Republicans who hate Trump,” Mr. Kazin said in a phone call.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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