Competition/Antitrust

Jonathan Kanter left the Department of Justice after President Trump was elected, but he was the architect of the major antitrust cases that Google just lost, and which the Trump administration continues to pursue. In the first case, the court found that Google illegally maintained its monopoly over web search with a series of default placement deals, most particularly on the iPhone.

OpenAI wasn't mentioned once in a judge's 115-page decision against Google over its dominance of the online ad market—but the Chat

Alphabet's Google created a monopoly that allowed it to control parts of the online-advertising industry, a federal judge ruled April 17, a decision that could upend one of the technology giant’s core businesses. The ruling marked the second time in eight months that a U.S.

Things are about to get uncomfortable in Washington for Google. Top Republicans in Congress are leaning hard on the tech giant to make its content policies friendlier to the GOP, after winning that fight with social media companies Meta and X. Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-TX) and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) are now putting pressure on Google and its parent company Alphabet, which owns both the internet’s dominant search engine and the popular YouTube video platform.

President Trump issued an executive order directing executive agency heads, in consultation with the Attorney General and Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, to begin the process of eliminating anti-competitive regulations. "Federal regulations should not predetermine economic winners and losers.  Yet some regulations operate to exclude new market entrants.  Regulations that reduce competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation—as well as the benefits they create for American consumers—should be eliminated.

Less than two weeks before the start of a landmark antitrust trial against tech giant Meta, the growing relationship between President Donald Trump and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is stoking fears in Washington (D.C.) that the White House could pull the plug on the whole case.

Europe is proposing to fund a homegrown alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink, following US threats to switch off the dominant satellite company’s broadband services in Ukraine. In a boost to the bloc’s struggling satellite operators, the European Commission’s defence white paper said that Brussels “should . . . fund Ukrainian [military] access to services that can be provided by EU-based commercial providers.” Miguel Ángel Panduro, chief executive of Spain’s Hispasat, said that Brussels had asked his company, Eutelsat, and SES to present an “inventory” of services for Ukraine.

Apple has suffered a blow in its efforts to salvage its lucrative search placement deal with Google. A new ruling from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals affirms that Apple cannot participate in Google's upcoming antitrust hearing, which could leave a multibillion-dollar hole in Apple's balance sheet. The judges in the case say Apple simply waited too long to get involved. Google pays Apple $20 billion a year to secure placement as the default search provider in the Safari desktop and mobile browser. The antitrust penalties pending against Google would make that deal impermissible. 

The UK is on the road to having a truly competitive broadband market within six years as other providers dilute the influence of its largest player, the country’s telecommunications regulator has indicated.

President Donald Trump fired the only two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, handing the remaining Republican commissioners exclusive control over the agency that oversees antitrust and consumer protection laws and serves as the U.S. government’s primary regulator of the tech industry. FTC  Commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Slaughter announced their dismissals on the social media site X, with both calling their firings illegal.