[ajross]

> I hope something comes of this, but other than a change in administration, what's new on this in the last decade? Hasn't Google essentially controlled most of online advertising for eons?

As the article points out, "preventing monopolies" is not the prima facie goal of antitrust law as traditionally interpreted. Monopolies are bad because of their effects on the market (e.g. they can raise prices higher than a competitive market would allow), not because of their "monopoliness".

There is a somewhat confusing quote in the article that implies that the DOJ is filing this suite in an attempt to get higher courts to revisit that standard. But then it finishes the paragraph with "put corporate America on notice", and I genuinely don't know whether that was the intent of the quoted prosecutor or not. This angle would be really big news if so, but... it seems poorly sourced.

(Full disclosure: I work at Google, but nowhere near advertising.)

[basch]

>the article that implies that the DOJ is filing this suite in an attempt to get higher courts to revisit that standard.

That is absolutely what they are doing. The FTC has made it very clear they are taking a new approach.

[steveBK123]

The US has, for maybe 30 years or so, looked past the traditional trust busting intention of anti-trust (hey, it's in the name!) laws - preventing monopolies.

The more modern interpretation has basically been "monopolies are ok if it lowers consumer prices", which sort of never made sense. Once you finish strangling all your competition, wouldn't you then raise prices? And then what, the government lets them do that until some vague line in the sand is crossed and we then actually enforce the law?

There are issues on the other side too - monopsony, where a company is so big they are the only nature buyer. You get this with Walmart being able to disproportionately squeeze their suppliers. You have this problem in labor markets sometimes because who else are you going to work for if your employer is super sized?

Lina Khan's writings, and the fact that Biden admin appointed her, indicates these recent assumptions about allowance of monopolies can probably be thrown out the window.

[gsatic]

Thrown out of the window and replaced with what?

[steveBK123]

Litigation

[ajross]

> Lina Khan's writings, and the fact that Biden admin appointed her, indicates these recent assumptions about allowance of monopolies can probably be thrown out the window.

Right, that's what the article is trying to imply. But it doesn't have a quote that actually says it, so I'm saying this is pretty thin. There are a lot of people (clearly including you) who would like to see antitrust law revisited in the courts. I just don't see it from this article.

[steveBK123]

Well Lina Khan is one of those people, and runs the FTC.. so, there will be results.

You will see some high-profile acquisitions fail this year.