Google Sued on Mobile Internet Search Monopoly

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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It what appears to be a frivolous suit, a law firm has filed an antitrust suit against Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). While the action may get headlines, there is no reason to believe that the move will get any traction.

Hagens Berman, which calls itself a consumer rights class-action law firm, announced:

it has filed a nationwide antitrust class-action lawsuit against Google claiming the search engine giant illegally monopolized, and financially and creatively stagnated the American market of internet and mobile search.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Google’s monopoly of these markets stems from the company’s purchasing of Android mobile operating system (Android OS) to maintain and expand its monopoly by pre-loading its own suite of applications onto the devices by way of secret Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADA). According to the suit, these agreements were hidden and marked to be viewed only by attorneys.

According to the suit, Google’s role in placing this suite of apps, including Google Play, and YouTube, among others, has hampered the market and kept the price of devices made by competing device manufactures like Samsung and HTC artificially high.

Whether or not the case has merit, such an action would need to be taken by the Justice Department to have any affect. To this point, the federal government has shown no interest in taking on Google over antitrust issues.

In other words, Hagens Berman’s suit is a flash in the pan.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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