Google and the limits of antitrust: the case against the case against Google

Successful firms such as Google, which compete in markets characterized by innovation, rapid technological change, and a strong reliance on intellectual property rights, are especially likely, and especially problematic, targets.3 Contemporary monopolization enforcement in the US is focused substantially on innovative companies in high-tech industries, creating substantial concerns that antitrust error in the form of successful interventions against pro-competitive innovations and business practices will hinder economic growth. Some have argued that the economy moves too fast for antitrust remedies to be fully effective.7 Others have argued that antitrust rules simply should not apply where innovation and dynamic competition are at stake because of the potential chilling effects on innovation.8 Still others have argued that anticompetitive abuses are even more likely to stifle innovation and harm consumers in the modem economy, and thus antitrust enforcers should be especially active in these markets.9 This Article will discuss the problems of antitrust enforcement in the Internet economy, and the theoretical case against the antitrust community's contemporary bête noir, Google.