TL;DR
Despite Google losing three antitrust cases, US judges have refused to impose effective penalties, rendering antitrust law toothless while tech giants continue unchecked.
Over a century ago, the US passed its first antitrust law, then failed to enforce it until John D. Rockefeller's oil empire grew strong enough to rival the government. Breaking it up took a herculean effort.
Google's Rockefeller moment
Now Google is replaying history. During the Biden years it lost three antitrust cases at once, two involving search and online advertising, with overwhelming evidence.
Yet in the 'remedy' phase, both federal judges chose to hold their fire, imposing no real punishment for Google's blatant monopolistic abuses.
The judges' stunning rationale
Google cornered search and deliberately made results worse, forcing users to search multiple times and see more ads. But Judge Mehta refused even to ban the simplest remedy, like ordering Google to stop paying Apple $20 billion a year to keep search default placements.
His concern? That without that bribe, Apple might not have money for R&D—even though Apple spends most of it on stock buybacks.
Conflict of interest, baked in
Google runs the ad marketplace, serves as broker, and participates on both sides. It simultaneously represents advertisers, publishers, and the exchange itself—like a judge who represents both parties in a divorce and awards the house to himself.
Numbers don't lie
Since Google's dominance, intermediaries' share of ad revenue jumped from 15% to 51%. Hundreds of billions of dollars shifted from publishers and advertisers into Google and Facebook's coffers.
History shows monopolies eventually fall, but only if people refuse to look away from the elephant in the room—as these judges have done.
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