Illustration by Cecilia Runxi Zhang for Forbes; Photos by: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto/Getty Images
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump made history when his Justice Department filed a landmark antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging the tech giant held an illegal monopoly in the online search market — the first major competition case of the internet era.
Now, as Trump returns to power, there has been optimism in Silicon Valley that his administration would take a softer line with tech competition, after years of aggressive enforcement in the Biden era. But antitrust experts told Forbes that while Trump may generally loosen the federal government’s grip regarding tech antitrust, it may do little to help Google.
“Google can’t derive much comfort from the election results,” William Kovocic, a former FTC chairman and now a law professor at George Washington University, told Forbes. “I think those federal efforts would carry on.” George Hay, an antitrust professor at Cornell Law School, argued similarly that it’s unlikely for Trump to pull the plug, especially since his administration was the one to first bring the case. “The horse is out of the barn,” he said.
Google declined to comment.
The tech giant’s search monopoly case went to trial last year. During proceedings, the federal government argued that Google signed illegal contracts with device makers to force Google products onto consumers. The cornerstone of the DOJ’s case was an agreement with Apple worth tens of billions of dollars that made Google the default search engine on iPhones and other Apple products. Google has said its dominant position comes from the quality of its products, arguing it gives consumers easy options to change their........