Opinion

Time For Republicans To Take Google’s Antitrust Abuses Seriously

(Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images)

Font Size:

Over the last few weeks, conservatives railed against Google and other big tech companies for their left-wing bias. This has led to a many–including Ann Coulter, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson–to advocate regulate Google as a natural monopoly. While Google should not face antitrust scrutiny from Republicans because of its liberal political positions, it also shouldn’t receive a free pass for anti-competitive conduct by the Democrats for the same reason. In fact, Google’s strong ties with the Obama administration may have prompted the Federal Trade Commission to drop an investigation into search result manipulation in 2012. Republicans do not owe Google special treatment, and should revisit the investigation into the monopoly’s manipulation of its search results.

Last month,  Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a detailed platform, the “Better Deal,” which outlines the Democratic leadership’s economic policies. The 1800 word antitrust section is titled “Cracking Down on Corporate Monopolies and the Abuse of Economic and Political Power.” It specifically singles out the food, beer, and eyeglass industry, but does not even mention any of massive internet monopolies.  While progressives are ostensibly against corporate power, the New York Times now runs op-eds with headlines like  “The Moral Voice of Corporate America,” praising internet monopolies for censoring the Right and obstructing the President’s agenda.

By taking a strong stand against abuses by Big Tech’s abuses, Trump and the GOP can expose the Democrats as phony populists. Why is Schumer singling out beer and eyeglass companies, while ignoring behemoths like Google? Most likely because his party benefits from Google’s “abuse of economic and political power.” According to the New York Times, “few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google.” Its employees met with the Obama White House an average of once a week. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt served as an advisor to Obama and Clinton and over 50 Google employees and lobbyists joined the Obama administration. Schmidt went on to fund “The Groundwork,” a data company which supported Hillary Clinton’s campaign and now calls itself part of “The Resistance.”

Coincidentally, the Obama administration treated Google with kid gloves. In 2012, the FTC’s  Bureau of Competition concluded that Google’s “conduct has resulted—and will result—in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets,” in a private report, which was inadvertently disclosed in 2015. However, the politically appointed commissioners ignored their own staff’s recommendations and let Google off with virtually no sanctions. At the time, Senate Antitrust Subcommittee chairman Mike Lee (R-UT) suggested he would hold hearings on communications between Google, the White House, and the FTC.

Lee never held these hearings, and, in fact, the Antitrust Subcommittee has held no hearings this year. With an administration which is not beholden to Google, a good start for Congress would be to both look into the White House interference in the FTC’s investigation and consider reopening it. This is especially timely after the E.U.’s €2.4 billion fine against Google for using its monopoly in search to favor its own comparison shopping.

The E.U.’s findings mirrors Lee’s past concerns that “Google is using its search dominance to favor its own offerings at the expense of competition” which would deny its competitors “resources needed to develop more innovative content and offer better services to customers.” Indeed, when the E.U. began its investigation of Google, Lee praised it for addressing the “problematic practices” he had identified and reiterated the need for the FTC to investigate the company.

With Obama out of office, the FTC finally has an opportunity to revisit the investigation of Google’s search manipulation without political interference. Republicans in Congress need to make sure the FTC thoroughly and impartially investigates this left-wing monopoly.

Luke Schwartz is an attorney practicing appellate and regulatory law in Washington, DC.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel