DOJ Claims Google Monopoly Delayed Innovation: Bloomberg

The Justice Department stated in federal court on Thursday that the release of ChatGPT and other technology innovations may have occurred earlier if the search market wasn’t monopolized by Google.

Following Microsoft Corp.’s recent announcement of integrating OpenAI’s AI-powered chat technology into its Bing search engine, Alphabet Inc.’s Google has announced its own conversational AI product, according to Kenneth Dintzer, the lead lawyer for the Justice Department’s antitrust case against the company.

Related: Google Asks Judge to End DOJ Antitrust Case Over Search-Engine Dominance

Dintzer pointed out to Judge Amit Mehta that real competition has had an impact. Google has been maintaining its monopoly for 12 years. It’s impossible to know if ChatGPT and other competitors would have emerged earlier without this competition, reported Bloomberg.

Google has asked Mehta to throw out two antitrust cases brought by the Justice Department and state attorneys general before a scheduled trial in September. The Justice Department and a group of states separately sued in 2020, alleging that Google’s deals to ensure its search engine is preloaded on web browsers and mobile devices violate antitrust laws. Mehta is overseeing both lawsuits.