Federal Judges Fail to Hold Google Accountable for Monopoly Power

The Sherman Act was passed in 1890 to prevent monopolies from emerging and becoming powerful enough to challenge the government. However, it took 22 years for this law to be used effectively against John D Rockefeller's corrupt empire.

In a similar manner, the tech industry has benefited from lax antitrust enforcement since its rise began. Google lost three federal antitrust cases during Biden's presidency, but was not held accountable by judges who decided on penalties. In one case, Judge Amit Mehta allowed Google to avoid deleting personal data taken from billions of people.

Another judge, Leonie Brinkema, also chose not to hold Google responsible for its actions in the ad-tech market. Although her remedy is sealed, it's clear that she did not order Google to sell off part of its ad-tech stack, which would have prevented further abuse of monopoly power.