Google controls about 90% of global web searches

The United States Justice Department on Tuesday sued Google for antitrust violations, alleging that it abused its dominance in online search and advertising to stifle competition and harm consumers.

The lawsuit marks the government's most significant act to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. It could be an opening salvo ahead of other major government antitrust actions, given ongoing investigations of major tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook at both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

"Google is the gateway to the internet and a search advertising behemoth," U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen told reporters. "But as the antitrust complaint filed today explains, it has maintained its monopoly power through exclusionary practices that are harmful to competition."

Google responded immediately via tweet: "Today's lawsuit by the Department of Justice is deeply flawed. People use Google because they choose to — not because they're forced to or because they can't find alternatives."

The case was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. It alleges that Google uses billions of dollars collected from advertisers to pay phone manufacturers to ensure Google is the default search engine on browsers. Eleven states will join the federal government in the lawsuit.

The Associated Press
Oct 20, 2020

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It is a sad day when we have allowed this company to become such a powerful controller of our information. They are really leftist bullies too. They are advocates for the media conglomerates stranglehold on information release. I had a program that would let you download anything you watched with it, and it came from the google store a few years ago. they sent out an update and it removed the download capability, and they nixed the old program. Anytime you try to download it it gives you the updated one. When thousands of users complained The group that released the program sent out a message stating Sorry, that they had to remove the download option because google threatened to sue them, to remove their programs from the store and block them from searches.