The Department of Justice will file a long-awaited antitrust lawsuit against Google today, alleging that the tech giant used anti-competitive practices to maintain a hold as a monopoly in online search, according to a new report.
The suit has been expected for quite some time, and will be filed today, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing sources.
The Justice Department has scheduled a press conference for Tuesday morning about “an antitrust announcement.” It is expected that the Justice Department will offer more information about the suit then.
According to the Journal, the suit will allege that Google and its parent company Alphabet is “maintaining its status as gatekeeper to the internet through an unlawful web of exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out competitors.”
Specifically, sources told the newspaper the suit will target how the company has arrangements with other companies that make Google’s search engine the default.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a critic of the tech industry, tweeted that the suit was coming today and called it the “most important antitrust case in a generation.”
The suit comes at a major point of reckoning for big tech in Washington D.C.
Earlier this month, the House Judiciary Committee published a mammoth antitrust report that criticized tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook for what they viewed as far-reaching monopoly power.
Meanwhile, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have targeted Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that shields websites from being liable over what users post on them.
The law should be thrust into the spotlight soon, as the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on whether they should subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg following their actions in slowing the spread of a dubious New York Post story about Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
