Judge Mehta's decision in the Google antitrust case is so bad I think he should be prevented from working in the law in any capacity. He just threw off his clear responsibilities and let an illegal monopoly maintain its illegal monopoly and continue harming everyone, based on "reasoning" that a child could debunk. It's embarrassing, it's cowardly, it's self-contradictory, it's lawless, it violates precedent, and it will harm countless people and businesses in the tech sector. A staggering achievement really. It even violates Supreme Court precedent, which dictates that judges must apply remedies that end illegal monopolies (and, I believe, confiscate the illegal gains, though I am less clear on whether that's Supreme Court precedent).

Here's an except from a post on Matt Stoller's BIG newsletter, which is very good on the subject of antitrust:

The last meaningful reference point for an antitrust remedy is the Microsoft case. In that one, the break-up was overturned, and a weak interoperability mandate was imposed. But the real penalty to Microsoft was embarrassment and fear within the executive suite; no longer would the company crush its rivals, from then on, lawyers would cautiously oversee product design. That’s not ideal, Microsoft should have just been broken up and set free to compete. But a chastened leadership did have the effect of not killing the next generation of companies, who ended up creating Web 2.0. That’s deterrence, which is one goal of antitrust remedies.

This remedy, by contrast, is obviously going to fail. And the main reason is that, unlike Microsoft, Google’s leadership is utterly unchastened. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and chief legal officer Kent Walker will get bonuses for what they did. They see this conflict as one in which they fought bitterly, and kept at it, and shredded documents, and the result was… victory. They will have no compunction continuing to engage in unlawful behavior. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? Would a rival or the government really go before a weak judge who doesn’t want conflict, and convince him to act? I don’t think so. In other words, this decision isn’t just bad, it’s virtually a statement that crime pays.

(emphasis mine)

Stoller recently wrote a post titled "Why Is Google Still in One Piece? The Terminating a Monopoly Problem" with the subtitle: "Google has lost three separate antitrust cases, and more are on the way. Why does this company still exist in one piece? It shouldn't, but we're still dealing with the hangover of the 1990s."

The problems with the tech sector go all the way to the tippy top.

#Google #monopoly #IllegalMonopoly #antitrust #dev #tech #Gemini #android #Chrome

We caught 4 more states sharing personal health data with Big Tech

Healthcare exchanges in Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island shared users’ sensitive health data with companies like Google and LinkedIn

Maine’s exchange, CoverME.gov, sent information on drug prescriptions and dosages to Google through an analytics tool. It also sent the names of doctors and hospitals that people had previously visited.

Google is an illegal monopoly, losing three different antitrust cases in the US over the last few years. None of us should be sending them data anymore, let alone state-run services.

https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2025/06/17/we-caught-4-more-states-sharing-personal-health-data-with-big-tech

#maine #surveillance #healthcare #HealthData #BigTech #IllegalMonopoly