Google Antitrust Lawsuit

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-to-file-antitrust-lawsuit-google-report_n_5f8ed94cc5b69daf5e16b0d5

I'm of two minds about this.  Is it right to punish a company for being too good at what it does?  Google is very, very good.  And their use of ads is very, very innocuous.

And to file this lawsuit right before the election smells of pandering to certain right wing factions, the ones that can't distinguish between fact-checking and "stifling conservative voices."

Quote :

Coming just days before the U.S. presidential election, the filing’s timing could be seen as a political gesture since it fulfills a promise made by President Donald Trump to his supporters to hold certain companies to account for allegedly stifling conservative voices.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley, a vociferous Google critic, accused the company of keeping power through “illegal means” and called the lawsuit “the most important antitrust case in a generation.”

The 11 states which joined the lawsuit all have Republican attorneys general.

Since when was the Republican party against big business???

OTOH it's true there's virtually no competition in the search engine industry.

NPR interviewed the AG from Arkansas this morning -- a very stupid woman, I must say -- about this Republican lawsuit.  She was asked why the lawsuit was brought.

"Well," she opined, "we know from internal documents and confidential promotion agreements that Google doesn't always return the best product in a product search."

NPR: "Have you gotten complaints about this from your constituents?"

AR: "Well, no... but we could've."

NPR: "Republicans are usually not antagonistic to private business.  Why are you taking on Google now?"

AR: "We hope that some of the Democrat governors will join our lawsuit, and make it bipartisan.  We don't see unfair competition as a partisan issue."

NPR: "Do you have any examples where Google unfairly prejudiced a search result?"

AR: "Well, no.  But we are VERY CONCERNED that Google is stifling conservative speech, and keeping conservative viewpoints from being shared openly."

NPR: "Okay, that's a separate issue for another time -- and involves a whole discussion of fact-checking versus unsubstantiated claims.  Are the Republican AGs going to file lawsuits against some of the other Big Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Apple...?"

AR: "We are contemplating that now, but for right now, before the election, we thought it was important to put Google 'on notice' for stifling conservative speech."