6 Dynamic competition in search enhances the user experience, increasing the value of search services to both consumers and advertisers. (“Consumers” of search include both search engine users and advertisers, but for ease of exposition, we use “consumer” to refer only to search engine users.) Search engines epitomize dynamic competition-the virtuous cycle in which innovation drives competition, which further drives consumer-welfare-enhancing innovation. Punishing Google for being the most effective search competitor would harm consumers and thus contradict the recognized purpose of antitrust law. To question every practice that produces victims would be counterproductive.
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The more successful a new method of making and distributing a product, the more victims, the deeper the victims' injury.” 5 Such is the nature of competition. Judge Frank Easterbrook has explained that “every successful competitive practice has victims. 4 Moreover, that Google has gained market share, even at the expense of its competitors, from its questioned practices does not justify antitrust intervention. Courts have long recognized that a practice likely has “redeeming competitive virtues” when all competitors use it. Google's competitors do the same thing, including offering specialized search. Google would employ a particular ranking methodology only if it helps to attract and retain search engine users. Google bases its business on developing search and ranking algorithms that facilitate consumer searches. 3 But it is difficult to see how anything that Google does in search and ranking algorithms is unfair. Unlike general search results, which provide links to other websites, specialized search results provide direct responses to the user's query based on the type of media pertinent to the query, such as images, videos, maps, local places, products, and real-time news. Critics have focused on whether Google's ranking of its specialized search results harms competitors and whether Google excludes competitors by limiting access to search inputs. Google's competitors claim that its ranking methodologies and search algorithms are unfair.
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In particular, the Chicago School has helped to clarify the Supreme Court's ruling that a monopolization claim under section 2 of the Sherman Act requires, in addition to the possession of monopoly power in the relevant market, “the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen, or historic accident.” 2 This distinction between monopolization through unlawful means and growth from meritorious rivalry is crucial to examining the search practices for which antitrust agencies in the United States and Europe have been investigating Google since 2010. 1 That process necessarily entails certain competitors losing customers or exiting the market while other competitors gain customers. Thanks to the contribution of the Chicago School of law and economics, the courts have emphasized since the late 1970s that antitrust law protects consumers by protecting the competitive process. Penalizing Google's practices as anticompetitive would violate that principle, reduce dynamic competition in search, and harm the consumers that the antitrust laws are intended to protect.
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The Chicago School of law and economics teaches-and the Supreme Court has long affirmed-that antitrust law exists to protect consumers, not competitors. They demonstrate competitors' efforts to compete not by investing in efficiency, quality, or innovation, but by using antitrust law to punish the successful competitor. Those claims contradict real-world experiences in search.
Opportunities for specialized search engines android#
They have alleged that Google is making it more difficult for them to compete by including specialized search results in general search pages and limiting access to search inputs, including “scale,” Google content, and the Android platform. Google's critics have consisted mainly of its competitors, particularly Microsoft, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other search engines. Antitrust agencies in the United States and the European Union began investigating Google's search practices in 2010.