Therell be a big price to pay if we let Big Tech run roughshod over the digital world

A federal judge and even the Justice Department are letting Big Tech run roughshod over the digital marketplace, and publishers, creators and consumers will pay the price.In April, Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google’s domination of online advertising — owning both the buyer’s and seller’s agents and the exchange where ads are bought and sold — was in clear violation of antitrust law.“In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete,” Brinkema ruled, “this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google’s publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web.”Absolutely right.And the obvious next step is to break Google’s lock on the ad-brokerage business.But Judge Brinkema inexplicably refused to go where her own logic leads, and ruled instead that Google has merely to submit to “proposed behavioral remedies” that are still sealed while the details are hammered out.“Behavioral remedies”? This isn’t a naughty schoolkid who needs a time-out or a good scolding.What is the point of antitrust law if a trillion-dollar company can violate the law and be declared a monopoly in federal court, but its punishment is little more than a wagging finger and an admonishment to “do better”?Brinkema clearly thinks — and Google surely agrees — the law doesn’t apply to the tech behemoth, and that it has the right to use its size and reach to rake in excess fees from every side of the ad business.

At a cost to everyone else.Meanwhile, in a move that’ll surely dismay writers, artists and anyone who believes in free expression, the DOJ is backing OpenAI’s claim that vacuuming up every scrap of art, literature and journalism ever published to train its AI large language models doesn’t violate copyright law.It’s all “fair use.” Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter! Please provide a valid email.

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