"This is a case of the future of the Internet"

In the United States, a proceedings on the government of the government against Google began. The company is accused of monopolizing the search market

In the United States, consideration of the largest antimonopoly case in the IT industry in a quarter century began. The American government accuses Google of violating honest competition rules by monopolizing the online post market. It is assumed that the consideration of the claim will take about two and a half months. The solution is expected to be made in 2024. If it is not in favor of the company, the next trial will be held, which will be decided, what actions should be taken against Google.

“This is the case of the future of the Internet-and whether Google will ever face significant competition in the field of an Internet post,” lawyer Kennet Dintser, representing the American government, said at the first court meeting. According to him, Google has “illegally holds” its monopoly since 2010, occupying 89% of the online market market.

The case against Google will be a landmark for the entire IT industry, writes The New York Times. “This is a turning point and the creation of a precedent for new platforms that have received a lot of weight and influence in the market,” says Laura Fillips Soyer, a teacher of antimonopoly law at Georgia University. According to her, the trial will be a test for the government, which will show its ability to regulate competition on an IT market.

In most cases, in cases of violation of antimonopoly legislation, the court sides consumers. From the point of view of the US Ministry of Justice, Google infringes their rights in terms of choice. At the same time, the company does not take any fee for using its search. Including this, she will build her protection - Google provides free quality services, which cannot harm the final consumer and society as a whole.

According to the Ministry of Justice, Google used various techniques to achieve a dominant position in the search market. By controlling this niche, Google is also a monopolist in the field of contextual advertising and trading in -the -person data on user interests.

As an example of the unscrupulous behavior of the company, the Ministry of Justice gives contracts with manufacturers of various devices and platforms, within which the Google search engine is set by default. According to the US government, the company spends more than $ 10 billion a year on such agreements.

Google, for its part, insists that such contracts do not interfere with competition, since the use of the search engine is not mandatory, it can be removed from the device and install another. “Our work was completely legal, and success is related to the quality of products,” the company said.

“More than 20 years ago, Google was a startup with an innovative search method on the ongoing Internet. That Google has been gone for a long time, ”says one of the statements of the US Ministry of Justice. The American government claims that now the company is holding back the entry of new developments to the market.

In the process of preparing for the proceedings, the parties regularly exchanged accusations. Google, for example, insisted that the head of the antitrust division of the US Ministry of Justice Jonathan Canter is biased because he previously worked in Microsoft and News Corp. The ministry claimed that the company destroyed reports of employees who could be valuable for the investigation.

Until now, the largest antimonopoly proceedings in the IT sector was a matter against Microsoft, which the American authorities began to investigate in the 1990s. The company was accused of monopolizing the software market. Only the trial regarding the obligatory pre -installation of the Internet Explorer browser was reached the court when installing Windows.

The founder of the company Bill Gates and General Director Steve Balmer then insisted on the same thing that they are going to build Google’s defense now: firstly, users can install another browser, and secondly, Internet Explorer is not a paid program.

In 2000, the court decided to divide Microsoft into two legal entities: one was supposed to engage in the operating system, and the second - by all the other software. The company filed an appeal, as a result of which the case was sent for a review. Ultimately, the company was not followed.

Microsoft and the US government in 2004 reached an agreement in which the company agreed to change some business practitioners-in particular, share some developments with competitors. Many participants in the case and experts then called such a result the defeat of the American government.