Big Tech didn’t like Biden. Trump won’t be any better for Google & Co

The Biden administration has been increasingly aggressive in pursuing antitrust cases against big technology companies, including one that threatens to force Google to offload its dominant Chrome browser. The looming change in administrations offers little prospect of relief.

This week, the US Department of Justice and the state attorneys-general who launched an antitrust case against Alphabet’s Google last year – and won it earlier this year – have said they are considering asking the judge, Amit Mehta, to order Google to sell its Chrome web browser.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with the House GOP conference.Credit: AP

Chrome, with a US market share of about 61 per cent and a global share of almost 65 per cent, is the world’s leading web browser. It plays a key role in the larger Alphabet business, enabling the targeting of the advertisements that generate the bulk of its revenue. It has also become a gateway to Google’s Gemini AI assistant.

In August, Judge Mehta ruled that Google had illegally monopolised the search market, with $US26 billion ($40 billion) of payments made to other companies to make its search engine their default option, blocking competition from search rivals like Bing and DuckDuckGo. As a result, he said, Google had been able to raise its prices for advertising without any constraints.

The case is one of a number of antitrust actions brought against big tech companies – there are several others against Google – that take aim at their dominance of online activities. Apple, Amazon and Meta have also been targeted.

In Europe, the European Union has used its relatively new Digital Services and Digital Markets acts to police and impose multibillion-dollar fines on the US tech giants for alleged breaches of competition laws.

There’s a global backlash against their market dominance, and despite the imminent change of administration in the US, no relief is in sight.

Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US attorney-general, Matt Gaetz, who would control the Department of Justice if his nomination were confirmed by the Senate, is on record as a fan of the aggressive approach taken by Lina Khan, the Biden-appointed chair of the US antitrust agency, the Federal Trade Commission. He is a strident critic of big tech.

Trump’s nominee to run the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), current commissioner Brendan Carr, plans an assault on the companies from a different direction.

Donald Trump’s controversial pick for US attorney-general, Matt Gaetz, is a strident critic of big tech.Credit: AP

Carr, who wrote the chapter on the FCC for the “Project 2025” wishlist for the Trump administration compiled by conservative think tanks ahead of the election, wants to “dismantle the censorship cartel” and has taken aim at Section 230 – “the 26 words that created the internet” – which gives platforms immunity from liability for most content posted by users of their platforms.

If they lost that immunity or if it were more limited, and they faced potential liability for comments on the billions of posts they upload daily, the business model of social media platforms could be destroyed.

They would argue – and even some Republicans would begrudgingly support them – that limiting their ability to choose what’s posted on their platforms would be an assault on their own First Amendment rights to free speech.

In his contribution to Project 2025, Carr said a handful of companies could shape everything from the information we consume to the places we shop.

“These corporate behemoths are not merely exercising market power; they are abusing dominant positions,” he said. “They are not simply prevailing in the free market; they are taking advantage of a landscape that has been skewed – in many cases by the government – to favour their business models over those of their competitors.”

The big tech companies face a potentially even more disruptive, aggressive and unpredictable administration than the one it will displace.

Carr’s primary concern is what he sees as censorship of postings by the platforms, a top-of-mind issue for Republicans ever since social media companies screened user content for disinformation in the lead-up to the 2021 election and Trump was “de-platformed” after the January 6 invasion of the Capitol.

Even before Trump nominated him, Carr wrote to the chief executives of Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet and warned them he believed they were improperly censoring some (presumably conservative) viewpoints and said the new administration could review their activities.

He wants the FCC to clarify its interpretation of Section 230 and support legislation that prevents platforms from censoring contributions. He also wants to be able to punish television broadcasters if they don’t conform to his notion of the public interest, even as he advocates deregulation of broadcasting and telecommunications.

US Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr says TikTok poses unique national security concerns.Credit: AP

When Kamala Harris appeared on Saturday Night Live, he said it was a breach of the FCC’s “equal time” rule and that the FCC should consider penalising NBC (even though the FCC doesn’t regulate the networks, only their affiliates). Trump himself has said the licences of TV news organisations whose coverage he dislikes should be revoked.

Carr also wants to force big tech companies to contribute to America’s $US9 billion Universal Service Fund, currently funded by telecommunications companies.

The FCC also regulates satellites, and Carr wants to speed up the approval process for launches and has argued in favour of grants of hundreds of millions of dollars to Elon Musk’s Starlink business. Carr is regarded as having a close relationship with Musk, who has his own big role to play in the Trump administration, one riddled with other potential conflicts of interest.

The antitrust actions against Google, like almost all the actions against the big tech companies in the US and Europe, will take years to reach any real conclusion.

Google has already said it will appeal against Judge Mehta’s judgement, as its peers have against adverse findings in court cases in the US and European Commission decisions in Europe. Its issues may not be resolved within the life of the new administration, given that Mehta won’t hand down his ruling on penalties until August next year.

In the meantime, where they might normally have expected Republican dominance of the White House and Congress to produce a more pro-business environment, the big tech companies face a potentially even more disruptive, aggressive and unpredictable administration than the one it will displace.

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