Antitrust in Action: How the Law is Catching Up to Big Tech

A grounded look at antitrust principles, enforcement philosophies, and the landmark lawsuits reshaping the digital marketplace.

While most of the significant Big Tech antitrust suits began in 2020 and 2021, there has been a lot of movement in them over the past few weeks.

This post is a primer covering:

• The philosophies of antitrust law,

• Basic antitrust law (with minimal legalese),

• The background and outcome of the cases against Google, Apple, and Meta,

• And what does it all mean for the consumer?

Antitrust philosophies

Antitrust is a massive area of law with a long, fascinating history surrounding it. There is an equally interesting debate about the guiding principle of antitrust law. Starting with a “big is bad” mentality in the early 20th century, this has evolved under the “Chicago School” philosophies of market efficiency. In contemporary times, the philosophical bedrock of the law has focused on consumer welfare. Basically, if the consumer pays higher prices and the resources in question are used inefficiently, then that is a violation of this principle and possibly the law.

[The Congressional records] suggest that Congress designed the Sherman Act as a "consumer welfare prescription." R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 66 (1978). Certainly, the leading proponents of the legislation perceived the [triple]-damages remedy of what is now § 4 as a means of protecting consumers from overcharges resulting from price fixing. Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 343, 99 S. Ct. 2326, 2333 (1979)

Another theory that has had much support lately is that the “neo-Brandeis movement.” This idea is focused on centralized political power as a metric for antitrust enforcement. It is arguably what drives the economic policies of the “Warren side” of the Democratic Party (although there is some bipartisan support for the general principles) and it is promoted by former FTC Chair Lina Khan.¹ Shortened for brevity, the basic tenets are:

1) Antimonopoly is a key tool and philosophical underpinning for structuring society on a democratic foundation. ‘What does democracy involve?' Brandeis asked in a speech in 1912. ‘Not merely political and religious liberty, but industrial liberty also.' The Madisonian concept of ‘self-government' hinges on the ability of citizens to control and check private concentrations of economic power. Surrendering this ability, Brandeis noted, would mean that ‘there is a power in this country of a few men so great as to be supreme over the law.'

2) Antimonopoly is more than antitrust. In much the same way that the Constitution disperses power among different branches and tiers of government, antimonopoly aims to create a system of checks and balances in the commercial and economic spheres. Antitrust law is just one tool in the antimonopoly toolbox. Over the course of two centuries, Americans created a host of competition policy levers [through regulatory agencies that] exist across government to promote competition within open and fair markets. This is then replicated 50 times over, as every state government also enjoys a set of antimonopoly tools, as do cities, which can shape markets...

3) Antimonopoly does not mean ‘big is bad.' The New Brandeisians—like Justice Brandeis—recognise that certain industries tend naturally towards monopoly. This is especially true of networks. In such cases, the answer is not to break these firms up, but to design a system of public regulation that prevents the executives who manage this monopoly from exploiting their power.

4) Antimonopoly must focus on structures and processes of competition, not outcomes. The fixation on efficiency, in turn, has largely blinded enforcers to many of the harms caused by undue market power, including on workers, suppliers, innovators, and independent entrepreneurs…Contrary to how critics portray the New Brandeisians, this new school of thought does not promote using antitrust law to achieve a different set of social goals—like more jobs or less inequality.

5) There are no such things as market ‘forces.' Brandeisians do not recognise any form of organisation or any type of power as inevitable. Technological advances may upend existing balances in ways that facilitate consolidation, but just as government can structure the political economy to encourage innovation, it can also ensure that the fruits of innovation are not used to capture private control over markets.

The law

I’m not going to go too far down the rabbit hole of antitrust law. Taking large antitrust lawsuits to trial involves years of evidence discovery and understanding of all sorts of regulations, statutes, and common law about what “monopoly power” is. I’m only going to touch on the central pillars of the law because that’s mostly what comes through in news articles.

U.S. antitrust law is built on three core statutes

1. The Sherman Act (1890). This Act prohibits contracts or conspiracies that unreasonably restrain trade and outlaws monopolization or attempts to monopolize any part of trade or commerce. The Act carries severe penalties, including criminal prosecution for willful violations.

2. The Clayton Act (1914). This Act addresses specific practices not explicitly covered by the Sherman Act, like mergers and acquisitions that may substantially lessen competition. As amended by the Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 and again in 1976 by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act, the Clayton Act “also bans certain discriminatory prices, services, and allowances in dealings between merchants [as well as] [requiring] companies planning large mergers or acquisitions to notify the government of their plans in advance.”

3. The Federal Trade Commission Act (1914). This Act created the Federal Trade Commission and outlaws “unfair methods of competition.” All Sherman Act violations are also violations of the FTC Act, and the FTC can enforce this law through its administrative proceedings or in court.

These laws and complaints can be enforced by the FTC, DOJ, state AGs, or private plaintiffs.

• The DOJ (through its Antitrust Division) can file civil lawsuits to stop anticompetitive conduct or block mergers and bring criminal cases (usually for hard-core cartels like price fixing).

• The FTC can sue companies in its administrative court or federal court to enforce the FTC Act (commonly challenging mergers or unfair practices).

• State attorneys general may also bring antitrust suits under federal or parallel state laws.

• Private parties (e.g., a competitor or consumer harmed by a monopoly or cartel) can file their own lawsuits.

High-profile tech antitrust battles often involve both government action and private litigation. For example, federal agencies might sue a tech giant for monopolistic practices, while consumers or business partners file class actions in parallel.

If successful, there is broad authority for potential remedies, generally falling into three categories:

• Structural Remedies (Divestitures): These require a company to sell or spin off parts of its business. Breaking up a monopolist is the classic example, for instance, forcing a tech behmouth to divest a subsidiary it used to quash competition.

• Behavioral Remedies: These impose restrictions or requirements on a firm’s conduct without altering its structure. For instance, a court may enjoin (prohibit) certain contractual practices, mandate equal access to essential platforms, or require a dominant company to license technology to competitors on fair terms. An example of this was a settlement in 2001 forcing Microsoft to alter how it engages with OEMs and other third-party developers.

• Monetary Penalties: In U.S. antitrust cases, direct fines are less common as a remedy in civil lawsuits, but they occur in certain scenarios. The DOJ can seek fines in criminal antitrust cases, though the major tech monopoly cases currently are civil in nature. Private plaintiffs, on the other hand, can win damages (automatically tripled) for the harm caused by the anticompetitive conduct.

Antitrust roundup

Google’s Search Monopoly

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA et al v. GOOGLE LLC Case Number: 1:2020cv03010

The DOJ and a coalition of state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Google in October 2020, alleging that Google illegally monopolized the online search market. The government argued that Google used exclusionary contracts and other practices to maintain its general search and search advertising dominance. A focal point was Google’s multi-billion-dollar deals with device makers like Apple and Samsung to be the default search engine on their phones and browsers. By paying hefty sums to be the preset option, Google allegedly fenced off vital distribution channels, making it hard for rival search engines to gain users, thus “unfairly boxing out competitors”.

The lawsuit also noted that Google’s scale and default status reinforce its advantage: more searches lead to more data, which leads to better results, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that new entrants can’t match. Google has contended that its agreements are legitimate and that users can switch defaults. Still, the DOJ asserts that inertia and strategic restrictions have stuck users with the Google search and left them without other options.

The case went to trial in 2023, and last year, Judge Mehta issued a 286-page opinion concluding that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”

The remedies phase of the trial is ongoing. The DOJ is asking for a series of solutions:

• Stop Google from paying for default search placement, effectively ending the exclusive deals that made Google the automatic choice on billions of devices.

• Require Google to spin off the Chrome web browser from Google’s core operations.

• Require Google to share its search data and algorithms with competitors. “The Justice Department has argued that Google has created a system in which its control of search gives an advantage to its AI products, while its AI products direct more users back to Google search.”

Google’s Online Advertising Business

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA et al v. GOOGLE LLC Case Number: 1:23-cv-108(LMB/JFA)

This suit alleges that Google has monopolized key segments of the online ad industry, specifically the technology publishers and advertisers use to buy and sell ads, by engaging in anticompetitive mergers and exclusionary conduct.

Google’s ad business is highly complex, but the focus is on the systems that broker display ads on websites: Google controls the leading publisher ad server (the tool websites use to manage ad space, historically via its acquisition of DoubleClick) and one of the largest ad exchanges (the auction platform that matches buyers and sellers of ad space in real time). Over the years, Google allegedly used a mix of acquisitions (DoubleClick in 2008, AdMeld in 2011, etc.) and restrictive interoperability choices to neutralize ad tech competitors and ensure that publishers and advertisers overwhelmingly had to use Google’s intermediaries.

In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing online ad technology markets.

Judge Brinkema ruled that Google “illegally dominates two markets for online advertising technology,” specifically (1) the market for publisher ad servers, and (2) the market for ad exchanges. She concluded that Google had “willfully engaged in a series of anticompetitive acts to acquire and maintain monopoly power in the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets for open-web display advertising.”

The judge’s opinion described how “Google further entrenched its monopoly power by imposing anticompetitive policies on its customers and eliminating desirable product features” and by depriving competitors of the ability to compete in ad tech, Google’s actions “substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.” However, it wasn’t a total victory for prosecutors: the judge did dismiss one portion of the case, finding that the DOJ failed to prove Google monopolized the advertiser-side ad network market. The conclusion of the ruling:

Because the ruling was so recent, there has not been a hearing to determine remedies yet, but the government has made it clear what it wants:

A lawyer for the Justice Department said the government expected to ask the court to force Google to divest tools used by online publishers to sell ad space, as well as the technology that connects those publishers with advertisers looking to buy space. In the original lawsuit, the government had asked the court to force Google to sell ad technology it had acquired over the years.

Apple: Fortnite and the Apple Store

Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. Case Number 20-cv-05640-YGR

Apple’s control over the iOS App Store, the only official way to get apps on iPhones and iPads, has been under legal fire for several years. Epic Games, the company behind the popular game Fortnite, directly challenged Apple’s App Store policies in 2020. Epic sued Apple in federal court, accusing it of running the App Store as an illegal monopoly (or, at minimum, a monopoly abusing its power). The key issues were Apple’s 30% commission fee on all app sales and in-app purchases, and Apple’s rules forbidding app developers from using or even mentioning alternative payment methods.

After a trial in Oakland, CA, in 2021, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a nuanced decision.

“The Court does not find that Apple is an antitrust monopolist in the submarket for mobile gaming transactions,” the judge wrote. “However, it does find that Apple’s conduct in enforcing anti-steering restrictions is anticompetitive.”

The anti-steering restriction is when Apple “[prohibited] developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing. Apple typically takes a 15% to 30% cut of gross sales.”

Fast forward to 2025, Apple was found in violation of the remedy imposed by the court. In an 80-page ruling, the judge stated

[First], the Court found that Apple's 30 percent commission "allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating margins" and was not tied to the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive.

Apple's response: charge a 27 percent commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases, where it had previously charged nothing, and extend the commission for a period of seven days after the consumer linked-out of the app.

Apple's goal: maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

[Second], the Court had prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to communicate with, and direct consumers to, other purchasing mechanisms.

Apple's response: impose new barriers and new requirements to increase friction and increase breakage rates with full page "scare" screens, static URLs, and generic statements.

Apple's goal: to dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue stream.

In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court's Injunction.

The court issued an order preventing “Apple Inc. and its officers, agents, servants, employees, and any person in active concert or participation with them, from:

1. Imposing any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app, and as a consequence thereof, no reason exists to audit, monitor, track or require developers to report purchases or any other activity that consumers make outside an app;

2. Restricting or conditioning developers’ style, language, formatting, quantity, flow or placement of links for purchases outside an app;

3. Prohibiting or limiting the use of buttons or other calls to action, or otherwise conditioning the content, style, language, formatting, flow or placement of these devices for purchases outside an app;

4. Excluding certain categories of apps and developers from obtaining link access;

5. Interfering with consumers’ choice to proceed in or out of an app by using anything other than a neutral message apprising users that they are going to a third-party site; and

The potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue because of this injunction, combined with Apple’s tariff-induced China supply chain problems, has been a rough month for the company. It’s unclear what the next steps for the company may be. As one columnist put it, “A giant crack appears in Tim Cook’s walled garden.”

Meta: Instagram & WhatsApp Acquisition Case

FTC v. Meta Platforms, Inc. Case Number: 20-cv-3590

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.) in a lawsuit, first filed in December 2020 and amended in 2021, accusing Meta of a years-long scheme to buy or bury its rivals in the personal social networking space. The complaint centers on Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014, which the FTC views as illegal moves to eliminate competitive threats.

At the time, Instagram was a rapidly growing photo-sharing app that could have become a major competitor to Facebook’s core service. WhatsApp was a leading messaging app that posed a future threat. According to internal emails cited by the FTC, Mark Zuckerberg explicitly wanted to buy apps instead of competing with them. In addition to acquisitions, the FTC also argues Facebook’s policy of blocking interoperability or data access for nascent rivals (like cutting off API access to Vine, etc.) violates the law.

After failing to negotiate a settlement (perhaps to the frustration of Zuckerberg after spending so much time and money courting President Trump), the case went to trial. The trial is ongoing, and Meta is trying to highlight its competition from TikTok and the uncertainty that Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions would succeed as defenses. Should the FTC prevail, it will ask that Meta be forced to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp.

What’s in it for us?

These high-profile antitrust lawsuits have profound implications not just for the companies involved but for consumers and the tech marketplace at large. Whichever antimonopoly philosophy you subscribe to, Antitrust enforcement ultimately aims to benefit consumers and citizens by promoting lower prices, higher quality, innovation, and competition.

Prices and Fees

One immediate way consumers could see an impact is lower prices or better deals if competition increases. Consider Apple’s App Store case: by forcing Apple to allow alternative payment methods, developers can avoid Apple’s 30% commission and potentially pass savings on to consumers. The CEO of Proton (an email and VPN provider) said, “No Apple tax means we will lower prices for users by up to 30%.” A more competitive search market could mean advertising rates on search might drop, and companies might not pass on high customer acquisition costs to consumers.

Innovation and Quality of Service

One of the central arguments for these lawsuits is that breaking up monopolies will spur innovation. Companies must innovate to stay competitive when they can no longer rest on monopoly power. If Google’s search monopoly is diminished, we may see new search engines or AI search tools emerge with novel approaches, perhaps specialized search providers that offer better privacy or unique features. More competition could mean greater choice of apps and services. In Apple’s case, we might see previously absent apps or services return to iOS because the playing field is fairer. New social platforms could emerge if Meta can’t simply acquire them.

The benefits of a monopoly

There are benefits of monopolies. The neo-Brandiesians and the Chicago school would disagree over the value of the tradeoffs of maintaining a monopoly and what should regulate them, but they would probably agree at least in theory that there are upsides.

One interesting case study is Amazon. One reason Amazon can price out smaller “mom and pop” stores is that it has an extensive logistics infrastructure. Their logistics and operations capability are impressive and can really only be executed through massive amounts of capital. Are the economic benefits to the consumer (or citizen) worth the monopoly and potential political power Amazon holds as a corporation? Maybe, maybe not, but that is the crux of the debate between the two sides.

The other benefit of a monopoly, or at least quasi-monopolies where corporations can accrue massive amounts of cash, is that things are expensive. Take laying undersea cables, for example. These projects require such enormous amounts of cash that only large nations and large corporations could feasibly connect the world. Again, is this worth the cost, or are there other policy solutions? Sure, but everything requires a tradeoff.

The market might actually solve it all in the end.

I find myself somewhere between the two schools of thought. I am certainly sympathetic to the concerns of the neo-Brandeis movement and take them very seriously. Yet I still have a lot of faith in the free markets, it is, after all, a democratic institution—if properly guarded. My personal antimonopoly lodestar is a philosophy that favors innovation through competition. However, this post is long enough, so I’ll have to expand on that some other time.

The interesting things about these cases are that consumers still have a vote, monopolies or not. We are already seeing AI take over traditional web searches, and while some AI models are funded by the same people getting sued by the FTC, AI is upending the market in ways that no divestment order can. This is not to say that these lawsuits are not needed—vigorous antitrust enforcement should be the hallmark of any democratic society—but it is an example that people will spend their money in places that they value most. In other words, capitalism always finds a way.

1. I’m giving the neo-Brandeis movement more space than consumer welfare theory because 1) consumer welfare theory is a little more intuitive, and 2) the neo-Brandeis movement is gaining support in both parties, and I think will shape (or be a rationalization) for government intervention in the market for years to come.