Google has managed to bribe multiple key Members of Congress, including Republicans like Sen. Mike Lee from Utah, in order to avoid anti-trust action against the company. The tech goliath does not have any protection from smaller companies that it tries to strangle out of business, however. Epic Games launched an anti-trust lawsuit against Google three years ago, and when the trial wrapped up a few days ago, Google lost on every count.
Epic Games is the maker of the popular video game Fortnite (just trust us, your kids play or know someone who does). It’s a free game but it allows players to make in-game purchases. A few years ago, players were able to make purchases through the Google Play and Apple app stores, but only if Epic Games gave them a hefty cut of its earnings.
When Epic complained about it, both tech giants kicked the game off their platforms. A jury of ordinary people (and not a judge) in San Francisco ruled that Google was engaging in monopoly practices by freezing smaller companies like Epic out of its app store.
The judge will issue a ruling on remedies for Google’s monopoly practices sometime next year. This is a hugely significant case because Google has a near-monopoly on the entire internet. Almost every website that you visit on a day-to-day basis would be broken if you were to unplug Google’s apps and widgets from it.
There’s a total lack of competition on the internet because of Google’s global dominance and monopoly practices. Now that this first case has been decided against Google, it will likely open the floodgates to further litigation from small companies that Google has frozen out of doing business. It will be like when Microsoft was broken up over monopoly practices—only much larger.
