The Department of Justice has successfully prosecuted Google in two recent antitrust suits, aiming to break up the tech giant for its "illegal excess" of market power.
While often presented as legislation to “protect” consumers and competition in the face of predatory practices, the basic premise of antitrust law is that market power is inherently harmful and needs to be curtailed. But this premise is profoundly unjust. Google's market power was earned through revolutionary innovation and staggering value creation. It should be celebrated, not condemned.
Even in its early days, the internet represented history's greatest repository of knowledge, yet most of its value lay dormant, trapped within a chaotic, unsearchable sprawl. Finding specific information was a frustrating ordeal using the clumsy tools available. This fundamentally changed when Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed their algorithm PageRank, which ranked pages by demonstrated usefulness.
This breakthrough achieved two monumental things simultaneously: First, it unlocked the vast, existing storehouse of knowledge, making it instantly accessible to common language queries. Second, by making information discoverable, it created a powerful incentive for individuals and organizations worldwide to populate the internet with even more valuable content, hoping to be found via Google. This dual impact – unlocking latent value and catalyzing new creation – transformed the web and cemented Google's indispensable role. Its solution was so superior that "google" became the verb for finding information online.
Recognizing that users often searched for purchasing advice, Google introduced AdWords (now Google Ads) in 2000. This allowed businesses to connect with interested consumers at the precise moment of inquiry, creating one of history's most effective advertising systems. This wasn't a separate venture but an organic extension of the value Google Search provided – value derived directly from making the world's information accessible and useful. The resulting integrated ad ecosystem, linking advertisers and publishers, soon became immensely successful, now accounting for the majority of Google's revenue.
It is for these very virtues – its success in creating an unparalleled gateway to knowledge and commerce, and generating vast wealth by offering superior products – that Google now stands condemned by the DOJ. The DOJ charges Google with maintaining illegal monopolies in search (via "exclusionary" deals like its default placement on Apple devices) and advertising (via "monopolistic" centralization of the ad market). These actions, the courts argue, unfairly hinder competitors, granting Google illegal power.
But consider the nature of Google's "power." It is market power: the ability to win customers by offering a superior proposition. Market power is earned through excellence and maintained only as long as that excellence persists. It involves no coercion. If Google falters, users and partners can gradually drift away (as may be beginning with competition from AI search tools like ChatGPT). Google holds no truly unassailable position. Its deal with Apple, costing billions annually, is tenable only because Google provides a service valuable enough for Apple to choose and for users to accept. Its ad platform thrives because it delivers superior results. Google does possess power, but that power is simply a manifestation of its productive virtue.
Contrast this with the political power wielded by the DOJ – the power of legalized force. This power can compel, dismantle, and destroy, irrespective of value created. It is this power, not market power, that requires strict limits to prevent the violation of rights. Yet, it's this power the DOJ intends to unleash on Google, proposing to "break it up" – forcibly dismantling the very integration that created so much value, aiming to remedy the supposed "evil" of its success.
There are many forms of injustice, but I can think of none as perverse as punishing virtue as if it were vice. This is the nature of the antitrust action against Google. It is not an indictment of excessive market power, but a demonstration of unchecked political power targeting a company precisely for its success.
