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Google’s Antitrust Loss to Epic Could Preview Its Legal Fate in 2024

The New York Times: “Google’s loss was swift after a monthlong antitrust trial in a San Francisco federal court. A little more than three hours after a jury had begun deliberating on Monday, they returned with their verdict. There were 11 antitrust claims that Epic Games, the maker of the hit videogame Fortnite, had brought against Google’s Play Store for Android mobile devices, and the jury found Google to be at fault in every one of them. It was the first test of how Google might fare in the antitrust gauntlet it faces in the United States — and the company was routed. The courtroom loss could portend Google’s legal fate in two, more significant antitrust cases in the United States that could weaken the world’s most influential internet business and reshape the tech industry for years to come. Google will learn more about the direction the cases will take next year. In San Francisco, Judge James Donato of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California will decide early in the year how Google should be punished for what the jury found to be anticompetitive conduct with its app store. Google and the Justice Department are expected to make closing arguments in May in a separate antitrust trial in Washington D.C., that focused on Google’s overwhelmingly popular search engine. And the company still faces another antitrust trial, regarding its online ad business, in a federal court in Virginia.”

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