1990 called; they want their antitrust action back. There is plenty to be concerned about regarding big tech today, including google specifically, but the the DOJ's action against google is deeply flawed. To understand why, let's start by reviewing the intro of their complaint.
Two decades ago, Google became the darling of Silicon Valley as a scrappy startup with an innovative way to search the emerging internet. That Google is long gone. The Google of today is a monopoly gatekeeper for the internet, and one of the wealthiest companies on the planet, with a market value of $1 trillion and annual revenue exceeding $160 billion. For many years, Google has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising—the cornerstones of its empire.
DOJ is upset about Google's dominance in advertising, a legitimate concern. DOJ correctly explains Google's dominance in advertising is driven, in part, by their dominance in search. Where DOJ starts to miss the mark, however, is in determining Google's search dominance stems exclusively from their arrangements to make Google the default search option in as many settings as possible. Google's path to search dominance has always been: provide users with the most relevant results. It is user choice that drives their search dominance. If "default" determined market share, why do apple maps continue to lag behind google in iOS? How did chrome browser ever come to displace IE?
DOJ draws a false parallel between their current action against Google and previous action against Microsoft. The two could not be more dissimilar. In the 90s, Microsoft bundled the browser with the operating system, and made it exceptionally difficult for users to switch default applications. Google, on the other hand, bundles competitive search engines into chrome and makes switching as simple as a drop-down selection.
If DOJ wanted to draw a parallel to anticompetitive practices of Microsoft, it should've looked at Apple first. The Microsoft action of the 90s centered on how MS used the power of their platform to limit user choice. Computing today is built in silos. Walled gardens. A concept that was partially defeated previously by forcing MS to allow direct competitors in windows. Apple brought walled gardens back with a vengeance on the iPhone. For companies to compete, they have to go through the apple store, and give apple a cut. Netflix wasn't popular in 2018 because it was available on the iPhone, but to be on the iPhone it had to give apple a 30% cut of subscriber revenue – a $700,000/day extortive shakedown.
If DOJ cared about Google causing harm to internet users, this wouldn't just be a simple search dominance suit, but would focus more broadly on personal data rights and how google uses all their products together to build consumer profiles and target advertising. To address that concern, however, we first need a congress that values people over corporations and profits, and restores our dignity by enshrining our rights to ownership and protection of our data.