What's this about?
The remedies phase of the ad tech antitrust case has concluded without a forced breakup of Google's advertising business.
Why is the remedy harder than the finding?
Because proving a company has monopoly power is a question about the past, and a remedy is a bet about the future. Structural remedies — breaking the business apart — are decisive and hard to unwind if wrong. Behavioural remedies are reversible and require ongoing supervision by a court with no expertise in ad exchanges. Courts overwhelmingly prefer the second, which is why monopoly findings so rarely produce breakups, and why the finding often matters less than everyone expects.
Why is it worth noticing?
HN 280 points, 191 comments
- It lands two days after Google removed MV2 extensions including uBlock Origin, which the thread does not fail to connect.
- Behavioural remedies put a court in the position of supervising an ad exchange indefinitely.
- The outcome sets expectations for every other platform antitrust case currently moving.