Google Tries to Pay Off the Antitrust Division & said juries (normal people) cannot decide hard cases.
Google Tries to Pay Off the Antitrust Division & said juries (normal people) cannot decide hard cases.
In an astonishing move, Google cut a check to the U.S. government over an antitrust case, in the hopes of avoiding a jury trial. And it argues such jury trials are unconstitutional.
I really hope its a jury trial, and they prove to be very useful. Interesting strategy Google went for.
When it's jury case they have to disclose everything publicly which also a plus point.
All that notwithstanding, Google cutting the check is a concession to the merits of the Antitrust Division’s case. As Lee Hepner put it, “If it wasn’t clear already, Google is acknowledging that actual monetary damages, even if trebled, are an insufficient deterrent for a trillion dollar entity to illegally maintain a monopoly.”
There are a couple of things going on here. First, Google has an unlimited budget for its antitrust defense, and it also does an immense amount of product testing. It’s quite likely that it did mock trials in front of test juries, and found that the outcome probably wasn’t good. The judge in the case, Leonie Brinkema, has been pretty annoyed at Google, so it’s not a promising outcome if they go with a bench trial. But they will bet on the judge than a jury. Second, circuit courts are usually more reluctant to overturn a jury than a judge, so Google wants Brinkema to have to author an opinion that they can then try to overturn.
We really need to stack the supreme court.
"Well republicans!---" ..are already doing it in state supreme courts.
Ugh when will the governments finally dare close Google?
Just Google it.
😂
That would give apple a monopoly in the mobile space and Microsoft a monopoly in the search/business app space.
both of those should get split up too
Oh well. Torque wrench overtighten these anti-monopoly laws that make duopolies the most common thing
This is the best summary I could come up with:
This week, liquor monopolist David Trone lost a Democratic primary despite spending $60 million, the Supreme Court overwhelmingly ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutional, and Google actually offered money to the Antitrust Division to try and avoid having a case go to a jury.
They just cut a check for all proposed harms, tripled it in accordance with the Sherman Act’s treble damages charge, and claimed that the point is moot.
Google hired a fancy medieval scholar, a guy at a Scottish university named Professor John Hudson, to explain how the founders were libertarians who thought the public was dumb.
I’ve watched a bunch of antitrust trials, and it’s clear that judges have too much power, and that having normal people involved would be a significant improvement.
As Lee Hepner put it, “If it wasn’t clear already, Google is acknowledging that actual monetary damages, even if trebled, are an insufficient deterrent for a trillion dollar entity to illegally maintain a monopoly.”
The judge in the case, Leonie Brinkema, has been pretty annoyed at Google, so it’s not a promising outcome if they go with a bench trial.
The original article contains 675 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
If Google doesn't get broken up over such blatant bribery, I don't know what it'll take.
Of course, the voice of reason. :)
His article mentions that the Supreme Court ruled the CFPB is unconstitutional, but I hadn’t even seen that. I couldn’t read about google after reading that. What in the fuck
That’s the opposite of what the Supreme Court just ruled regarding the CFPB
Oh, good. I misread it, my b. I was wondering how I hadn’t heard this devastating news earlier.
The headline is strange. The DOJ sued for money and Google just straight up gave them the money they could have won upfront. That's not a "pay off"; it's literally what they asked for. It's a win for the DOJ. Google's argument against a jury trial also seems on solid ground. The right to a trial by jury is meant as a protection for Americans; the government itself doesn't have the right to demand a jury. If the defendant thinks the legal issues in the case are too arcane and a judge is more likely to get it right (and get it right faster, which is cheaper), that's their prerogative.
Based on the statements Google previously made, Google most likely sent a check for a fraction of the damages that a jury could find them liable for.
It's unclear just how big the check was. The court filing redacted key figures to protect Google's trade secrets. But Google claimed that testimony from US experts "shrank" the damages estimate "considerably" from initial estimates between $100 million and $300 million, suggesting that the current damages estimate is "substantially less" than what the US has paid so far in expert fees to reach those estimates.
According to Reuters, Google has not disclosed "the size of its payment" but has said that "after months of discovery, the Justice Department could only point to estimated damages of less than $1 million."
A fine of less than $1 million is absolutely not what anyone except Google is asking for.
A fine of less than $1 million is absolutely not what anyone except Google is asking for.
The DOJ can really only ask for treble damages. If Google paid ~$3 million, that's realistically as good as the DOJ was going to get. It sounds like the initial estimates were just way off. Nobody should be shocked that the inept antitrust division screwed up again. They're going after big, buzz-worthy names without the facts or law to actually back it up.
The entire concept of having idiots from the area decide your fate went out of style with the wild west. The average person has no ghastly idea what the case is even about. These are people that don't even know the difference between WiFi, "the internet", and google itself.
If you really want a jury for a technical discussion it should be a jury of technical people versed in the subject.
But overall, ban jury duty. Archaic stupid process.
Juries are vital. Yes we should be able to select for understanding and knowledge, but they’re also there to represent the will of the people from whom the government derives its power.
If the people are too uneducated to understand things then maybe we need to fund education better.
They are not vital. Almost no countries in the world practice trial by jury other than The US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and Ireland. The US is the only country in the world that uses trial by jury for civil cases.
The law is complex and nuanced. Most people lack the understanding and background to apply the law justly and uniformly. It is an antiquated idea that should go.