Today, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled against Google in a highly anticipated antitrust case stemming from concerns with the firm’s control of online advertising. In a new insight, Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Jeffrey Westling walks through the court’s findings and explains why its decision could dampen calls for broader reform of antitrust laws.

He concludes:

Apart from the direct effect on Google, it is unclear what effect this case will have on the larger competition policy discussion. It may highlight that the consumer welfare standard and existing antitrust laws fully protect competition and consumers, and broader calls for reforms to target concentration as a per se harm are unnecessary. While Google will likely challenge factual and legal determinations, the court generally relied on well-established principles such as product substitutability when defining the market and existing precedent on tying when finding anticompetitive restraints. Proposals to alter antitrust laws to forgo this analysis, however, could result in procompetitive conduct and growth becoming illegal per se, to the detriment of consumers and competition as a whole.

Read the analysis.