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public knowledge
Judge's Ruling on Google Search Monopoly Decried as 'Slap on the Wrist' for Tech Giant
"You don't find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot," said one critic.
Sep 03, 2025
A federal judge's Tuesday ruling on tech giant Google has drawn criticism from anti-monopoly advocates who say that it let the company walk away without having to give up its economic stranglehold over online searches and advertising.
As reported by The New York Times, Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google had to share some of its data with competing search platforms, while also placing restrictions on the company's ability to pay to ensure its search engine receives preferential treatment on web browsers and phones.
However, these remedies fell far short of measures requested by the US Department of Justice, which had asked that Google be forced to share more of its data with competitors and to sell off its Chrome web browser.
Nidhi Hegde, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, offered a scathing assessment of Mehta's ruling, and she urged the government to appeal and push for harsher penalties against Google.
"You don't find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot," she said. "Similarly, you don't find Google liable for monopolization and then write a remedy that lets it protect its monopoly. This feckless remedy to the most storied case of monopolization of the past quarter century is a complete failure of his duty and must be appealed."
She went on to describe Mehta's decision as "bizarre" given that he had "found Google liable for maintaining one of the most consequential and damaging monopolies of the internet era."
Barry Lynn, the executive director of the Open Markets Institute, accused Mehta of letting Google get away with a "slap on the wrist" given the scale of the damage it has caused.
"Google for years has wielded its vast power over all layers of the digital economy to crush competitors, halt innovation, and rob Americans of their right to read, watch, and buy what they want without being manipulated by one of the most powerful corporations in human history," he said. "Judge Mehta's order that Google share search data with competitors and cease entering into exclusive contracts does nothing to right those wrongs."
Like Hegde, Lynn also urged the government to appeal the ruling.
Elise Phillips, policy counsel at the freedom of expression advocacy group Public Knowledge, took aim at Mehta for letting Google maintain control of both Chrome and the Android mobile operating system, even though he concluded that Google had abused its market power to stifle competition.
Phillips also suggested that elected officials needed to pick up the slack when it comes to holding giant corporations accountable for their actions.
"Judge Mehta's remedies decision signals why the courts cannot be the end-all, be-all of antitrust," she said. "Google's anticompetitive behavior, and behavior like it, can and must be confronted by legislation that targets conflicts of interest, self-preferencing, and discrimination online. The American people need sector-specific legislation that addresses these harms and breaks down barriers of entry into online markets, fostering competition, innovation, and choice."
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of human rights organization Amnesty International, also weighed in to express disappointment with Mehta's decision.
"This ruling was a missed chance to rein in Google's power," said Callamard. "Google's toxic business model is built on pervasive surveillance. By tracking people across the web and monetizing their personal data through targeted advertising, the company has severely undermined our right to privacy."
Google was first sued for antitrust violations by the DOJ in 2020 under the first Trump administration, and then again in 2023 under the Biden administration.
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Charter-Cox $34.5 Billion Megamerger the 'Last Thing' Consumers Need: Watchdog
"However troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
May 16, 2025
Charter Communications and Cox Communications on Friday announced a $34.5 billion merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create the largest cable television and broadband provider by subscribers in the United States, sparking a flurry of monopoly concerns.
Charter, which uses the branding Spectrum, is already the second-largest publicly traded cable company, but coupling with the privately held Cox would push it ahead of the current industry leader, Comcast. According to a statement from the cable giants, the combined company would be known as Cox Communications, with Spectrum as the consumer-facing brand.
"The last thing American consumers need is yet another megamerger, as giant internet service providers and cable companies claim they need to get yet-larger to keep up with their industry peers," said John Bergmayer, legal director at the watchdog Public Knowledge, in a Friday statement.
"More consolidation won't fix the cable industry, and introducing new sets of competitive problems is no way to address existing ones," he continued. "As always with cable mergers, the question is as much a loss of opportunities for content creators and programmers to reach an audience, as the loss of choices to subscribers."
As NBC News—whose parent company is Comcast—reported:
On a Friday call with investors, Charter CEO Chris Winfrey called the deal "good for America" and said it will "return jobs from overseas and create new, good-paying customer service and sales careers."
The commentary comes as corporate deal activity has been slower than expected since President Donald Trump took office.
After Trump won the election, Wall Street rallied as many expected the regulatory environment to loosen and the floodgates to open for dealmakers and corporate leaders. But in the months following the election, companies have been contending with other factors rather than dealmaking, such as the Federal Communications Commission's investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, and the outcome of Trump's tariffs.
The Charter-Cox deal could face scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission, led by Trump appointee Brendan Carr. Journalist George Chidi said on social media that "in a sane world, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division and the FCC would block the merger of Cox Communications and Charter."
"Do I need to even complete this thought?" Chidi asked. "For the next three years and six months—assuming we are still having actual elections, it's corporate Christmas."
Public Knowledge's Bergmayer said that "however troubling as this merger might be for competition, at least as troubling is what the companies might agree to in order to persuade the Trump administration and the current FCC to approve the deal."
Trump has a long record of forcefully going after his critics, and experts—including Daniel Stockemer, a professor at Canada's University of Ottawa, in a commentary published earlier this month in the journal Politics & Policy—have warned that with his second term, the president is pushing the United States toward autocracy.
"Will the companies drop cable channels critical of this administration, or agree to censor online content or sites that the administration disapproves of—something the loss of Title II and net neutrality makes all the more likely?" Bergmayer wondered. "Given FCC Chairman Carr's proven willingness to use the agency's power to 'further the president's agenda,' and the willingness of companies to agree to get deals done, what could once be dismissed as paranoid speculation becomes frighteningly plausible."
"From walking back—even reversing—company policies designed to promote diversity and inclusion, to pulling back on news coverage critical of the administration, far too many companies have already put the short-term interest of currying favor with the White House over the public interest, and over the interests of their employees and the communities they serve," he added. "Hopefully that does not happen here."
Emarketer analyst Ross Benes told Reuters that "antitrust concerns are legitimate. But in this era of deregulation, the merger would probably pass as long as they don't upset the president."
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Trump's Bogus 'Unitary Executive' Theory and the Dismantling of Democracy
We are a nation of laws, and we cannot be ruled by executive fiat.
Feb 20, 2025
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order that purports to place independent regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, under his direct control. Based on the so-called “unitary executive” theory, which claims that any congressional limits on presidential control of every lever of government power are unconstitutional, this action poses a grave threat to the rule of law and the separation of powers—cornerstones of our constitutional system.
This executive order states that the president is charged with ‘faithfully executing the laws.’ This is true. However, the laws of our nation include the existence of independent regulatory agencies, the power of Congress to appropriate funds and direct how they are spent, and protection for certain government employees and officers from arbitrary dismissal.
Executive orders are not the law—they are statements of policy, and memos from the president about how the Executive Branch conducts its internal affairs. By attempting to use executive orders to override actual laws—the kinds that are passed by Congress, not issued on a whim from the Resolute Desk—the Trump administration is effectively asserting that it stands above the law. Indeed, that it is the law. But the role of the executive branch is not to decide what the law is, or to pick and choose which ones it likes, but to carry out and enforce the law, as written. Donald Trump is a high-ranking government employee—not a king. If there are laws he does not like, he can work with Congress to change them.
Donald Trump is a high-ranking government employee—not a king.
A nebulous and broad understanding of the phrase ‘executive power’ cannot prevail over duly enacted statutes passed by Congress and signed into law by presidents of both parties, over the course of decades. The U.S. Constitution did not change its meaning when President Trump took office. That this ‘unitary executive’ theory has made its way from the fringes of academia to the halls of power, and that it has even been accepted by some credulous judges, does not mean that it is right. Many legal observers have pointed out the shoddy scholarship and selective history that underpins it. We are a nation of laws, and we cannot be ruled by executive fiat.
In the order, the Trump administration purports to seize for itself the power Congress delegated to independent regulatory agencies, and as written, declares the White House’s interpretation of the law as ‘authoritative,’ with no mention of the courts. Of course, the president is not, and never has been, the final arbiter of what is lawful. Lawyers working for the government owe their allegiance to the American people, not to President Donald J. Trump. The many government lawyers who have already resigned rather than follow illegal or unethical directives from Trump's appointed political operatives are an inspiration, despite how frightening a hollowed-out Department of Justice might seem.
As for independent regulatory agencies, in addition to being the law of the land, they are often good policy. While I have sometimes disagreed with decisions taken by the FCC or FTC, under both Republican and Democratic control, I understand the importance of expert agencies that are free from day-to-day political interference. The FCC’s control over broadcast licenses, and its unenviable role of coordinating spectrum use between different industries and other government agencies, among other things, means it should be free to try to come to the best answer – not the one with the loudest political support. This applies to enforcement activities as well. Under the Biden administration, for instance, the FTC frequently investigated politically powerful companies, to the ire of many prominent Democrats and Democratic donors.
While I have sometimes disagreed with decisions taken by the FCC or FTC, under both Republican and Democratic control, I understand the importance of expert agencies that are free from day-to-day political interference.
President Trump, like other presidents have done, is free to express his views as to what the agencies should prioritize, and to nominate like-minded commissioners as vacancies arise. But, as directed by Congress, and reflected in commissioners' protection from being fired due to policy or political differences with the president, such agencies must make the final call on policy decisions.
The notion that independent agencies are ‘unaccountable’ is, on its face, absurd. The president nominates all agency commissioners, including ones of the opposite party, and names the Chair from among them. Agencies regularly answer to Congress, which controls their budget, and enacts the statutes that spell out the limited scope of their authority. Independent agencies cannot issue regulations without following the strict guidelines of the Administrative Procedure Act, and their rules and enforcement actions are regularly challenged in the courts, and occasionally reversed by Congress.
The wisdom of having independent agencies and tenure protections for certain government officials has been confirmed in recent weeks by the disastrous and irresponsible actions of the lawless Trump administration. One president should not be able to nullify statutes passed into law by past presidents and past Congresses with the stroke of a sharpie. Congress must re-assert its central constitutional role. Further, one hopes that federal judges and Supreme Court justices who, in the past, have lent their support to an imperial vision of the presidency, can see where this is going and act to limit the ability of the president to subvert our democracy and constitutional order.
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