🚨US v Google Trial Starts Tomorrow!🚨
I've tracked this closely for over a decade, so how about a quick thread?🧵

Let's start by setting the record straight on one key issue: Vertical Search.

38 bipartisan states & territories are part of the states' verticals case.🇺🇸
(1/9) One important background point to appreciate throughout the case is the fact that Google was caught destroying evidence. The judge has not yet decided how to rule, but it shapes how everything Google says is interpreted in this case. (2/9) x.com/papscun/status…

In quoting the bill, Chander excises the mandatory element that plaintiffs prove the alleged activity must "materially harm competition." They then claim the bill just prevents "discrimination" betw biz users. Much of antitrust is based on remedying anticompetitive discrimination

https://twitter.com/AnupamChander/status/1533873425831411713

They hold up Parler, Texas, & Ted Cruz as the usual right-wing bogeyman, but none of that fear-mongering is warranted. As they note, Parler lost its antitrust claims early on in its case, & nothing in the bill would have changed that.

Are we ever going to talk about how the DC “cheat sheet” industry is largely subsidized by Big Tech?

Doing a back-of-envelope count, these three companies (and the front groups they fund) constitute at least a third of the DC media world’s revenue. This isn’t occasional one-off advertising. DC’s political media has a *structural dependency* on a single “industry” (constituting only 4 companies who are aligned to defeat narrow expansions of antitrust law). Even the shill-iest of shills for Big Tech brag no funder is over 10%

🚨🚨🚨
@Leah_Nylen just dropped an atom bomb on DC.💣

All of the full, unredacted confidential FTC memos from the 2011-2013 Google antitrust investigations are officially in the public domain.

Staff memo: drive.google.com/file/d/1Jbk28T…

Econ memo: drive.google.com/file/d/1v4HLHH…
🚨🚨🚨 Full story out with no paywall politico.com/news/2021/03/1…

The tech hearing is delayed 30 minutes. The committee just sent out a note that the hearing start is now delayed to 1pm. There is also a rumor that Jordan now plans to appear & kick off the hearing with lots of procedural motions to create delay. The show may not really get going until 2 or so. 🤷🏼‍♂️

THREAD: I've spent most of the last decade educating policy makers about the ways Google biases its results to help itself (while harming consumers).

In those years, I haven't seen a more comprehensive journalistic tour de force on this topic:
themarkup.org/google-the-gia… 👈Read it! One striking aspect of the piece is Google's attempt to rebut multiple elements. This never happens. Google's usually condescending to the reporter and sends a glib, dismissive sentence-or-two statement.

This story has clearly struck a nerve in Mountain View.

So Eric Schmidt is *really* out at Google?

Schmidt's main value to Google: he was a political animal who understood that antitrust was the only thing that could stop the search giant.

He made a lot of smart bets until he lost a big one.

https://twitter.com/lutherlowe/status/1259174339255074823

Pre-Google, Schmidt ran Novell, which was an antagonist in US v Microsoft. He watched in awe as a company which many thought was unstoppable was severely hobbled in the late 90s (creating oxygen for Google's rise). In '01, anti-Microsoft pal/battle buddy John Doerr recruited him.

Nothing in the Page/Brin announcement says anything about a divestiture or relinquishing of the voting control. The fact remains: Larry Page and Sergey Brin are the most powerful and least accountable humans on the planet. Between 2011 and 2013, the FTC tried to depose Larry Page during its antitrust investigation of Google. Google's lawyer's claimed he was ill multiple times. He was never deposed.

Eric Schmidt's key value to Google was his witnessing 1st hand (as a Microsoft antagonist at Sun/Novell) how antitrust could paralyze a Big Tech firm. He saw by 2002 Google would become dominant & would follow MSFT's fate unless it invested heavily in DC. techmeme.com/190430/p46#a19… He's a political animal, and his shamelessly opportunistic hustling bought Google 6 years (& counting) it didn't deserve in avoiding antitrust prosecution. After successfully ingraining himself in Obama's victorious operation, the FTC abruptly closed its case a few months later.

Google paid to put fake news about me on Red State. Its in-house lobbyist then pushed the fabricated story to Capitol Hill staff in order to undermine my critiques of Google’s antitrust violations.

wired.com/story/how-goog… Google claims to take the problem of "fake news" on their platforms seriously but Wired reports that they are actually paying for fake news to be written about competitors 1/250th their size.

Wow. @OrrinHatch just dropped a 🔥 letter to FTC suggesting antitrust questions around Google need another look hatch.senate.gov/public/index.c… This is quite significant coming from Senator Hatch's office.

Senator Hatch was 1 of the key agitators 20 years ago in the months leading up to U.S. v Microsoft, the last major antitrust case in the consumer tech space. He's also the longest serving Senator on the key committee.