Google Antitrust Hearings — Jordan Koene // Searchmetrics

Quotes

• “Essentially, the first scheduling element was when Google was going to provide their written answers to the Justice Departments lawsuit. What they are saying is asking what is Googles response and what they make of the claims and the data that was provided by the Justice Department. This has to be provided mid-December which is basically about a month or so to provide it to the judge.” - Jordan

• “So Google had to give a written response to the actual antitrust and Im assuming this is Sundar Pichai writing this is a joke on a cocktail napkin, no?” - Ben

• “The search landscape is much more diverse than just Google vs. Bing. It entails Amazon, Facebook, and a variety of other search experiences that consumers leverage. Im sure that is going to be part of Googles statement and their official response to the Justice Departments lawsuit.” - Jordan

• “In addition to this, Google also made claims about whether or not the Justice Department was going to provide the data and material that they collected over their so claimed 16 months investigation of Google.” - Jordan

• “I think that as a part of Googles response, they really want to take a look at what it is that the Justice Department is using to make their claims and allegations against Google being a monopoly.” - Jordan

• “Ultimately, the data that I believe that the Justice Department has is thinly veiled. Its probably a lot of the pontifications that take place online about Google being this dominating search engine but really looking at the thin view of how big the search landscape is.” - Jordan

• “I would also assume that theyve collected data from other third party sources that aggregates things on trending data, visit data, user data as well as a collection of state-specific data that each one of these Attorney Generals has provided to the Justice Department around say, other lawsuits for specific businesses that were harmed by Googles practices.” - Jordan

• “Essentially, in order for the Justice Department to have any case here, they have to prove that something was harmed. That Google harmed somebody.” - Jordan

• “I think these Attorney Generals are probably aggregating a lot of small businesses who have claims against Google. Small businesses that have struggled to get a response from Google or feel like theyve been mistreated by Googles practices or feel that Googles product themselves are in direct competition with what they are trying to do online. But I would find it hard-pressed to believe that wed be seeing businesses in there that are very mainstream.” - Jordan

• “The case depends on whether or not Google files a Motion To Dismiss which means that Google believes the claims are so false that the court should just disregard the entire case. Those filings are due November 13. That will be the defining moment of the case in terms of how long this gets protracted but both camps want this to be an expedient trial.” - Jordan

• “I wouldnt be surprised if were getting some meaty updates every two weeks to a month which is pretty rare when youre dealing with a case of this magnitude. So this is an interesting situation where we are getting news bites and progress in this case and I wouldnt be surprised if we have some sort of solution on this matter early next year.” - Jordan

• “A couple of things happened aside from the scheduling. The Justice Department asked Google to provide more data that would help them bolster their case so were going to see how Google decides to comply with that.” - Jordan

• “There was an interesting and strange turn of events when Judge Mehta had to disclose some personal scenarios including the fact that his cousin works as an Engineer at Google and one of his really good friends was an Executive at the company. Then he said that either of these are terribly significant but he wanted to make sure that everybody is aware.” - Jordan

• “When asked if other states are going to join. So as we mentioned, there are 11 states that filed this case with the Justice Department and the question was, if there are more states that are going to get involved and basically all those 11 states are Republican. The Justice Department also announced that no other states will be joining at this particular point.” - Jordan

• “I dont want to go into politics but Im gonna go there a little because you brought it there. This seems to be (right or wrong) an antitrust case that is being brought by a Republican-led Department of Justice with 11 Republican states.” - Ben

• “I wouldnt go into the length of saying that the Republican party as a whole is against Google. I think this particular leadership is trying to make a case that there is something systematically wrong with Big Tech and they are trying to use Google and put them on the pedestal to see if they can go after more companies and Google will be just the beginning.” - Jordan

• “Heres what I dont understand but my understanding of the Republican partys principles are, free market economics and not a ton of regulation and here we are with a political party that generally says, look, let the rich guys keep getting rich and pay their taxes and itll trickle down and theyre going to hire a bunch of people. Yet they are going after the biggest companies in the country and saying, lets break them up. This feels like a position that would come out of a Democratic party which is why its confusing to me.” - Ben

• “In Republicans defense, I would say that their perspective on this is not about free markets and trade. Its focused on competition. There are some foundational realities that Google has a very strong foothold in a particular segment of behavior that users perform but it is not the only one and it is not particularly exclusive.” - Jordan

• “The reality here I would say is that this isnt so much a Republican ideal or Democratic ideal. It is more about whether or not Google is competing fairly in the marketplace. Thats why we have these cases because were going to define what the marketplace is and were going to get some sort of answer in relatively short order around how our justice system believes in fair competition within online markets.” - Jordan