Whimper or bang, Google’s antitrust outcome will echo through tech

LAST week, Google and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) officially began legal fisticuffs in the biggest antitrust case since the DOJ took on Microsoft in 1998. The irony has not been lost on anyone old enough to remember the cacophony of a dial-up connection – it was Microsoft’s run-in with regulators decades ago which created the very circumstances that permitted Google to flourish.

Other Big Tech firms are racking up billable hours with their own lawyers this year: Apple is being investigated by the DOJ, while the Federal Trade Commission has Amazon and Meta in its crosshairs.

The renewed antitrust scrutiny that Silicon Valley faces will force us into an updated confrontation with the age-old contradictions of capitalism and its resulting monopolies.