For anyone who’s taken an American history class, terms like the Sherman Act, Standard Oil, and the Federal Trade Commission likely ring a bell. These were all key parts of the antitrust reform movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — a time when transcontinental railroads enabled an unparalleled increase in factory production, mechanization, and the rise of big business. 

Today, the internet has similarly ushered in a new era of technological development, and with it, new concerns over competition. In the last several years, the U.S. federal government has brought several major antitrust cases against Big Tech companies, including both Google and Amazon.

The lawsuit against Google — filed in January by the Department of Justice and joined by 11 state attorneys general — is the first major monopoly case to make it to trial in decades. The DOJ’s case argues that Google has entered exclusionary agreements with device-manufacturers like Apple, major wireless carriers, and web browser developers to close off competition and ensure it’s almost always the default search engine for users. Google, which is worth $1.7 trillion and controls over 90% of the U.S. search engine market, claims that the reason it dominates the industry is because it provides a superior product, and that default settings aren’t as significant as they’re made out to be.

With millions of pages of documents and depositions from over 150 people, United States vs. Google kicked off its 10-week court battle this September. As of mid-October, it’s still too early to tell how U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta will rule, but either way, this case is an important test of the current antitrust system’s power over tech giants today. If Google does end up losing, it may be fined, broken up into smaller parts, or banned from forming default search agreements. For consumers, a more even playing field may mean needing to choose between search engines themselves, or perhaps, having their devices default to other services like DuckDuckGo or Bing. If Mehta decides to do away with default search agreements, we also may see companies like Apple begin to increase prices on their devices to make up for lost contracts with Google. 

Amazon is another Big Tech company that has recently come under government scrutiny for anticompetitive practices. In a lawsuit filed on Sept. 26, the Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general claim that Amazon punishes sellers for offering lower prices elsewhere on the internet and coerces them into paying for Amazon’s delivery network. In its rebuttal, Amazon argues that its practices — from incentivizing competitive prices to providing an optional but convenient storage, packaging, and shipping service called Fulfillment by Amazon — are directly aimed at minimizing prices for consumers while also benefiting the businesses that sell on its platform.

If the FTC is successful, the lawsuit calls for “structural relief,” meaning that the agency may ask the court to change how Amazon operates, though the scale of these changes is undetermined. At worst, Amazon could be forced to break up into smaller companies to handle its separate lines of businesses, potentially creating a more level playing field for other sellers. 

“If we succeed, competition will be restored and people will benefit from lower prices, greater quality, greater selection as a result,” said Lina Khan, head of the FTC and longtime Amazon critic. 

Opponents of the case, however, say that an FTC win would actually be detrimental to consumers, who would lose the Amazon services they’ve become accustomed to and may even end up paying higher prices. Investors, too, face an uncertain future as some analysts predict that a breakup might actually increase the value of Amazon shares. 

With both Google and Amazon under scrutiny for monopolistic practices, the U.S. appears to be entering a new era of antitrust reform. Momentum has been building since 2021, with the proposal of a handful of bills meant to end anticompetitive practices of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Despite bipartisan support for the legislation, however, Big Tech ultimately won the battle thanks to a combination of aggressive lobbying and spending on their part and legislative failures on Capitol Hill. 

Whether the 2023 lawsuits against Google and Amazon play out differently is yet to be seen, but with the future of Big Tech on the line, they’re certainly cases worth following.