The US government is on the warpath against Big Tech. While the major lawsuit against Google is still in full swing, the government is now going to take Amazon to court, and the lawsuit against Sam Bankman-Fried has also started.
The cases against Google and Amazon revolve around the monopoly position that both companies would have, and that they would have gotten by thwarting competition in every possible way.
The lawsuits are being brought by the Federal Trade Commission, supported by plaintiffs on behalf of several states. For example, Amazon is said to have kept prices artificially high by punishing suppliers who offered lower prices and forcing them to only do business with them under penalty of high fines and exclusion. Google is accused of having thwarted competition by concluding exclusive contracts that make it difficult for others to enter the market.
Sam Bankman-Fried is the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and he is on trial on seven counts of bank fraud and conspiracy. He is accused of embezzling client funds, which he used to invest and buy real estate.
The CEO of Microsoft testified in the case against Google. He admitted, among other things, that the search engine Bing is not as good as Google. His testimony does provide a good insight into how lucrative the data search market is, how it works and how Microsoft is also keen to profit from it. More about this in a next post.
