A federal judge has dismissed major arguments in the lawsuit against Google brought forward by a number of state Attorneys General. This lawsuit accuses the tech giant of unlawfully monopolizing the digital market by utilizing its search engine dominance for its own gain.
The ruling, which was handed down on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, throws out the Attorneys General’s complaint from November. The ruling was seen as a major boost for Google, as the company had argued that the lawsuit was overly broad and an attempt to regulate the First Amendment rights of free speech.
The suit had sought to hold Google liable under existing antitrust laws for allegedly using its market power to drive up ad prices. It also asked the court to force the company to unbundle its search engine service from its other platforms.
However, the judge sided with Google’s argument that the case was too broad and lacked any evidence of the company’s intent or conduct that was anti-competitive. He further argued that the states failed to show that their complaint was narrowly tailored, saying that they failed to provide a “plausible, legally cognizable theory” of why Google’s conduct was illegal.
The ruling is the latest setback for the Attorneys General, who, in addition to their Google case, have filed multiple antitrust cases against other tech giants such as Apple and Facebook. While the judge can’t rule on the merits of the case itself, many legal experts believe that the ruling foreshadows the possibility of the underlying complaint being thrown out as well.
It appears that Google has won this particular round in the battle against the states, but the case is far from over. The Attorneys General are expected to tweak their complaint and resubmit it to the court, and the final decision will likely go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Until then, Google remains in an advantageous position, as the judge’s ruling underscores the difficulty of antitrust cases against tech giants.
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