Trump expected to shift course on antitrust, stop Google breakup

Jody Godoy - Reuters - 06/11
Donald Trump will likely dial back some of the antitrust policies pursued under the administration of President Joe Biden, potentially including a bid to break up Alphabet's Google over its dominance in online search, experts said.
  • Big Tech antitrust cases to continue, though approach may soften
  • Trump expected to ax policies criticized by business groups
  • FTC has Democratic majority until Lina Khan replaced
Nov 6 (Reuters) - Donald Trump will likely dial back some of the antitrust policies pursued under the administration of President Joe Biden, potentially including a bid to break up Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google over its dominance in online search, experts said.
Trump is expected to continue cases against Big Tech, several of which began in his first term, but his recent skepticism about a potential Google breakup highlights the power he will hold over how those cases are run.
"If you do that, are you going to destroy the company? What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it's more fair," he said at an event in Chicago in October.
The U.S. Department of Justice is currently pursuing two antimonopoly cases against Google - one over search and another over advertising technology, as well as a case against Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is suing Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab and Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab.
The DOJ has laid out a range of potential remedies in the search case, including making Google divest parts of its business such as the Chrome Web browser and ending agreements that make it the default search engine on d...
[Short citation of 8% of the original article]