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A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that Google violated antitrust law, spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-rules-google-broke-antitrust-law-search-case-2024-08-05/

What is the "anti trust" here? Seems like a company is just competiting very hard to stay at the top, same way athletes do..

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    There's no dispute that they're competing very hard; the question is only whether they're competing fairly. Just as athletes may not compete by using steroids, businesses are prohibited from certain means of competition.
    – bdb484
    Commented Aug 6 at 5:10
  • More specifically, in this case, paying off the contest's hosts to ensure you're allowed to start 10 meters in front of the others.
    – kenod
    Commented Aug 6 at 9:51
  • Because Biden hired Lina Khan to be the head of FTC and she hates "Big Tech". Finding a sympathetic judge to side with the FTC is not that hard, only the Supreme Court is usually willing to bat hard against them. If Trump wins Lina Khan will be fired on day 1 and all of these ruling will be rescinded.
    – JonathanReez
    Commented Aug 6 at 21:29

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The reasons for the decision are here.

The legal framework is presented at p. 134. The allegation is not merely fierce competition, but monopolization. This is:

  • monopoly power in the relevant market; and
  • wilful development or maintenance of that monopoly power

The judge found that Google had engaged in exclusionary conduct in the relevant product markets. Accepting the Plaintiffs' theory centered on "Google's distribution agreements with browser developers, OEMs, and carriers," the judge found that these exclusive agreements:

  • Foreclose a Substantial Share of the Market
  • Allow Google to Profitably Charge Supracompetitive Prices for Text Advertisements
  • Have Allowed Google to Degrade the Quality of its Text Advertisements; and
  • Have Capped Rivals' Advertising Revenue

Your analogy to athletics is inapt. In athletics, there are guaranteed to be competitors. Anti-trust law aims to maintain some semblance of that in a market. Anti-trust law is about making sure competitors are not excluded from even having a lane to compete in.

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  • "Your analogy to athletics is inapt": as bdb484's comment under the question shows, it isn't entirely inapt.
    – phoog
    Commented Aug 6 at 7:48
  • One can stretch an analogy too far, but it makes sense to me in the sense of "anti-trust laws are like anti-doping rules"
    – User65535
    Commented Aug 6 at 8:57

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