[Aunche]

What exactly is so hard to understand? It's a well known fact that they pay to be the default search engine. Either that's against the rules or it is not. It sounds like the DOJ doesn't want to be blamed for any potential negative consequences for establishing clear rules, so instead they'll bully Google into settling so that they can get an easy win.

[AnthonyMouse]

The Department of Justice isn't a rulemaking entity, it's the federal prosecutor's office. The antitrust laws we have are quite old and passed during the era of robber barons in order to do something about them, with extremely broad language that by its terms would prohibit not only anything you might like them to but a lot of things you might not.

The result is that the courts get to make something up about when they apply, and have made a bit of a mess of it.

Sure, it says, "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal." But that doesn't mean Sprint can't merge with T-Mobile. Or maybe it does. Anybody have a coin to flip?

What the DoJ can do is dump a bunch of allegations into an indictment and hope some of them sound plausible enough to induce a settlement. Which will ideally actually promote competition and not be some political quid pro quo.

[dragonwriter]

> The Department of Justice isn’t a rulemaking entity

Yes, it is. [0]

> it’s the federal prosecutor’s office.

That is among its functions, yes.

> The antitrust laws we have are quite old and passed during the era of robber barons in order to do something about them, with extremely broad language that by its terms would prohibit not only anything you might like them to but a lot of things you might not.

Among the antitrust laws we have are:

* the Antitrust Criminal Penalty Reform and Enhancement Permanent Extension Act (2020); whose main effect was, as the names suggests, to make permanent the provisions of the Antitrust Criminal Penalty Reform and Enhancement Act (2004).

* the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act (2020)

* the antitrust provisions of the Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act of 2020 (oddly enough, 2021)

Some of our antitrust laws were written in the so-called “age of robber barons”, but antitrust law (even purely statute law) hasn’t been static since.

[0] for illustration, https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-advances-p... ; you probably mean, though, that its not the rulemaking entity with regard to competition, since that’s mostly the FTC.

[AnthonyMouse]

> you probably mean, though, that its not the rulemaking entity with regard to competition, since that’s mostly the FTC.

I actually wasn't aware that they issued rules at all and now that I know that they do I kind of wish they would stop.

Sometimes we separate government functions for a reason.

> Some of our antitrust laws were written in the so-called “age of robber barons”, but antitrust law (even purely statute law) hasn’t been static since.

It's not that Congress hasn't passed a law since then, but I believe they're being accused of violating[0] the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890.

[0] https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416366.pdf

[dragonwriter]

> It's not that Congress hasn't passed a law since then, but I believe they're being accused of violating[0] the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890.

All three of the “core” anti-trust laws (the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the FTC Act of 1914) have been amended several times since by later acts. They aren't ancient relics that haven't been reconsidered and adjusted based on experience and changing conditions.

[AnthonyMouse]

I feel like the problem with them is actually the modern courts rather than the old law. These rules were meant to have teeth, but they're also targeting entities that by their nature have power, and then you're consistently going to have trouble with vigorous enforcement being debased through political influence.

What we need is something that prevents market concentration to begin with rather than trying to claw it back once it's already entrenched.

[nickserv]

Consolidation of power has been happening at least since the agricultural revolution 10000 years ago.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try to limit it, and there have been periods of relative equality. Just that it's always going to be a battle, there isn't something we can do to change this behavior once and for all.

[AlbertCory]

So you think there's an automatic sunset on all laws? News flash: there isn't.

[AnthonyMouse]

The problem is that it was written to smash trusts to smithereens but has had a century of being eroded by well-funded monopolists with expensive lawyers.

If it was working the way it was supposed to, none of these companies would be this big.

[AlbertCory]

There are entire books and law review articles written about antitrust law since the Sherman Act. Maybe you've read some of them?

Being "quite old and passed during the era of robber barons" is not quite the killing argument you think it is. The 13th Amendment is even older. So is Marbury vs. Madison.

[bell-cot]

> Either that's against the rules or it is not.

If the rules were actually that simple, the world would need far fewer lawyers.

But - whether you say "rules that simple can't work when the world is vastly more complex", or "rules-writing lawyers aren't stupid enough to write their own kind out of their jobs" - the rules are definitely not that simple.

[flagrant_taco]

Simple rules aren't very feasible though, laws need to be well defined and the sheer scale of societies today makes that anything but simple.

I'd argue that's the main reason for not making a law though, if it's too complicated for the average person to read and understand where the line is drawn then we shouldn't draw it.

[unyttigfjelltol]

As has been said so many times on HN, individual users of Google resources are not the customer, they are the product. Browser defaults are an annoying way that Google exerts pressure on everyone to be their product, but I'm more annoyed by their stupid Captcha API integrated into many pages Google has no business monitoring.

I feel harmed every day being coerced to be an unwilling and unhappy product of Google's adtech leviathan. I don't know what that means for this particular case, but hopefully Google gets the message and builds a better off-ramp.

[nonrandomstring]

> I feel harmed every day being coerced to be an unwilling and unhappy

You are harmed. The question now is how to obtain remedy for that objective harm and injunction against further actual harms.