Google Rejects DOJ Antitrust Suit Claims

Google is pushing back in court this week on antitrust claims brought against it by the Justice Department two months ago, reported The New York Times. In a legal filing with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Google denied or partially rejected almost 200 specific complaints against it. On only one count, that Google was a “founded in Menlo Park garage 22 years ago,” did the company side with the Justice Department.

The filing, a 42-page document, is a paragraph-by-paragraph — and sometimes sentence-by-sentence — denial of the claims made by the government and a group of states that have joined its lawsuit. In the filing, Google claims it “developed, continually innovated and promoted” its search product as part of its mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

“People use Google Search because they choose to, not because they are forced to or because they cannot easily find alternative ways to search for information on the internet,” the company stated.

In October the Justice Department sued Google for abusing its dominance in online search and advertising — the government’s most significant attempt to protect competition since its groundbreaking case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago.