Monday’s decision against Google will likely be remembered in the same breath as other major antitrust cases throughout history, some antitrust experts said. That list includes the breakup of AT&T’s telephone monopoly and Standard Oil, as well as Microsoft’s illegal bundling of its Internet Explorer web browser with Windows, said Diana Moss, vice president and director of competition policy at the Progressive Policy Institute.
In each of those cases, Moss said, the courts highlighted a specific business practice or mechanism — such as Microsoft’s browser bundling — as a violation of US competition law.
The Google decision this week is no different, zeroing in on the search giant’s exclusive contracts and finding huge problems with the use of such by large, monopolistic firms.
“This is definitely a landmark,” said Moss, adding that “it’s very clear in signaling that the use of exclusive contracts in the hands of a monopolist violates the law.”
