The federal government has more lawsuits in the pipeline trying to rein in the tech giants, including another antitrust case against Google that goes to trial next month.
The U.S. government’s landmark antitrust trial against Google’s search business concluded on Monday with a federal judge’s ruling that the company had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly. But the parade of major federal cases challenging the power of the tech giants is just getting going.
Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission started investigating Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, the parent company of Instagram and WhatsApp, for monopolistic behavior. The government has since sued all four companies — Google twice — in what it says is an effort to rein in their power and promote more competition. The companies have denied the claims.
Here’s what’s next with the U.S. government v. Big Tech.
Amazon
In September, the F.T.C. and 17 states sued Amazon, accusing it of protecting a monopoly by squeezing sellers on its vast marketplace and favoring its own services. The practices also harmed consumers, the F.T.C. argued, and resulted in some cases of “artificially higher prices” because Amazon prevented those selling goods on its site from offering the same products on other online sites for less.
A judge in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington set the trial for October 2026.
Amazon has asked the judge to dismiss the case and has argued that it often offers low prices to consumers and doesn’t hurt sellers on its marketplace. The lawsuit shows a “fundamental misunderstanding of retail,” the company has argued.
The chair of the F.T.C., Lina Khan, who is famous in certain circles for a 2017 Yale Law Journal antitrust paper on how to rein in Amazon, has vowed to take on tech monopolies.