The case against Google hinges on an antitrust “mistake”

Supreme Court ruled that a coalition of 14 railroad proprietors had used their joint ownership of a bridge across the Mississippi river, near the St Louis terminal, to unlawfully stifle competition. The crossing gave the railroad trust a chokehold over traffic to and from the city’s main terminal. St Louis was an important railway hub. In the court’s opinion, the monopoly power over the railway bridge was therefore a means to foreclose the business of rival rail operators across America.More than a century later, American trustbusters are preparing for battle with another giant in a network industry. In January the Department of Justice () set out a 155-page complaint against Google for monopolising digital advertising on exchanges. It alleges that Google used strong-arm tactics to lock up the ad-tech business. The case is billed as the biggest antitrust challenge to tech since the ’s epic battle with Microsoft in the late 1990s.