A District judge on Thursday dismissed a private antitrust case against Google brought by a group of advertisers. It does not affect separate cases brought by state attorneys general and the federal Department of Justice.
The dismissal is rooted in the relevant market fallacy. Essentially, the advertisers’ lawyers defined Google’s relevant market too narrowly, which leaves out important details. As the judge writes, “The Court is particularly concerned that Plaintiffs’ market excludes social media display advertising and direct negotiations.”
Essentially, the attorneys argued that Google has a monopoly over Google ads. This is true, in the same way that Ford has a monopoly over Ford-branded cars. But just as car buyers can easily buy a Toyota or a Chevy despite this monopoly, advertisers can easily turn to other options, both online and in print.
The plaintiff’s lawyers until June 14 to revise and resubmit their lawsuit with a more realistic definition of Google’s relevant market.
The other antitrust complaints against Google commit their own versions of the relevant market fallacy, as I’ve noted before:
Google’s relevant market is larger than a traditional search engine page. Every Uber ride involves an Internet search to pair riders and drivers. These searches do not use a Google algorithm, and would not work if their customers’ information was “being concentrated in one company.” Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify searches do not use Google. Nor do dating sites, which compete with each other based on proprietary search algorithms, as do many other popular search-based Internet services.
The relevant market fallacy also applies to allegations of anti-conservative bias against Google. If Google acquires even the reputation of serving unreliable search results, consumers can turn to competing options by simply typing a web address into their browser. And the relevant competitive market, as noted above, is not limited to search engines. News aggregators, consumer review sites, and other relevant content sites are legion, and easy to find, even for relatively uninformed users.
I call this the dozen keystrokes argument, because that’s roughly how difficult it is to type in another website’s address.
It will be months before court dates are set in any of the Google antitrust suits. They are still in the process of deciding relevant market definitions for the purposes of the cases. As we’ve seen, plaintiffs often try to bias antitrust cases in their favor by suggesting unrealistically narrow market definitions. It is good that at least one judge is wise to this semantic trick.
Inertia Wins! 