by Pete Rosenbery
CARBONDALE, Ill. — The U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust case against internet search engine giant Google could have far-reaching implications for technology regulations and its impact on users, according to legal and technology experts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
The non-jury civil trial against Google opened Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. and is expected to take up to three months. The lawsuit filed in October 2020 by then-U.S. Attorney William Barr claims Google operated a monopoly “through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices” in search engine and search advertising markets by paying money to ensure it is the default search engine on internet browsers and phones.
Zvi S. Rosen, assistant professor with the SIU School of Law, said the case brought by the justice department and several states “represents a new frontier – and approach – to technology regulation, and how the court rules in terms of both procedure and substance will be important as internet law matures as a discrete area of law.“