Canada should pay attention to Google antitrust case, say Jim Balsillie, other experts

As search engine giant Google enters a U.S. courtroom in the nation’s first big federal antitrust trial in decades, observers say Canada would do well to pay attention.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Justice, alongside the attorneys-general of 38 states, will go face-to-face with Google in a D.C. district courtroom, taking on the tech giant’s unrivalled two-decade domination of internet searches.

“Canada should be paying attention because this is a highly consequential case that could permanently restructure global digital markets,” he said.

“It’s also a lesson Ottawa can learn about the importance of having empowered regulators that can regulate a data-driven economy.”

Filed in 2020 under the administration of President Donald Trump, the U.S. government’s antitrust allegations centre around agreements Google made with web browser developers and mobile phone producers to ensure Google products — specifically their venerable search engine — were presented as default choices for consumers.

Ottawa, Balsillie said, has spent far too long “cozying up to big tech and entrenching their monopolies,” instead of developing its own capacity to govern digital markets.

Last year, Balsillie expressed concern over the government’s efforts within Bill C-11 to curb the proliferation of online surveillance and protecting online privacy.

“The business model pioneered by Google takes human experience — not just your searches, but also where you go, what you buy, who you meet or communicate with, your heart rate, income, political views, desires and prejudices — as its raw material and monetizes it by pushing micro-targeted content to individual users,” he wrote in a 2021 op-ed.

“The algorithms that push this content are addictive by design and exploit negative emotions — or, as Facebook insiders say, ‘Our algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness.’”

Google has long faced criticism over its business practices.

This Thursday will mark the one-year anniversary of Google’s loss in court appealing a 4.125 billion euro ($6.03 billion Canadian) fine by the EU for requiring phone makers using their Android operating system to include their search and browser apps as a condition of access to the Google app store.

Google is also set to defend itself in a second antitrust suit filed by earlier this year by the department of justice — this time over its online advertising business.

Meanwhile, Google is embroiled in a high-stakes spat with the Government of Canada over the Online News Act — legislation that would require Google, along with fellow tech-giant and Facebook owner Meta, to enter into agreements with Canadian news publishers for use of their work.

“I feel like I’m back in the 1990s all of the sudden,” he said.

“They’re arguing, essentially, that Google has leveraged its market power dominance to be the default choice on a lot of different devices — it’s the same argument that was made against Microsoft.”

This week’s trial is the first such case for the department of justice since United States v. Microsoft — a landmark decision concerning the software maker’s practice of bundling their Internet Explorer web browser with copies of Windows operating system, and accusations that Microsoft engineered Windows APIs (application programming interfaces) to prefer it over competing browsers.

“The government at the time wanted to break Microsoft up, much like they had done with Bell telephone two decades prior to that,” Caraway said.

“It didn’t work out that way for the government, the appellate courts upheld the case for the most part, but not so much the proposition of breaking up Microsoft.”

“I think Canadian policymakers are already focused on Google,” he said.

“What happens in U.S. jurisdictions will automatically translate to the Canadian context as well.”

Daniel Tsai, a lawyer who also lectures on business, law and culture, told the National Post the current Liberal government’s tendency to procure policy ideas from other governments makes it a foregone conclusion that Canada will be paying close attention to how Google’s case pans out.

“Canada looks to the United States, and to a lesser extent the EU, for leadership,” he said.

“We even saw Canada copy Australia’s model when it came to online news and taxing of news links.”

If Washington maintains a hard line against Google, Tsai said, then Ottawa would naturally follow suit.

“Concurrently with the U.S. government, Canada would be in lockstep and likely take that as a cue to also be more aggressive in its prosecution and pursuit of anti-competition with big tech, and particularly with Google,” he said.

“The Canadian government should look really closely at this, but it shouldn’t just wait for direction from the U.S. government,” he said.

“They have to get off their laurels and be aggressive and proactive, and not try to copy what others have done.”

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