THEN AGAIN, NOTHING IS GENERALLY A LOUSY HAND:

There's no question that Google dominates search, but in 2020, there isn't one company that rules technology but a cluster (including Microsoft). In some ways they work in tandem: The filing cites one Apple executive saying in 2018, "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company." Yet in other ways they do compete. It seems that everyone is vying to be the company that gives you the proper response when you speak to a device that plays music, tells you the weather, and reminds you that you're late for an appointment. Google isn't necessarily winning that race.

Filing an antitrust complaint begins a lengthy process. If Google decides to employ all its legal resources--and it has indicated that it intends to--we're in for a struggle that could eat up much of the decade. A trial is more than a year away. Appeals of the verdict will take much longer. But there's a second approach: a relatively speedy settlement that would free the company of the distractions suffered by Microsoft 20 years ago. The DOJ's main complaints are relatively easily addressed. Google could stop paying Apple, Mozilla, and others to make its search the default choice. According to Google, most people would switch away from a rival to reinstall its search engine anyway. Meanwhile, Google could be less onerous in demanding prime placement of its apps in Android phones. Since it already controls the operating system on those phones, its apps will continue to perform well. I think Google would survive those setbacks quite handily.

But don't expect anything to happen until we learn who wins the election taking place in two weeks. We have no idea whether a Joe Biden DOJ would drop this investigation, continue it, or even double down on it and conclude that Google's market power should not include YouTube or other properties. One worrisome signifier for the DOJ: All 11 of the state attorneys general who joined the DOJ suit are from red states.

In other words, there are signs that this DOJ salvo might flop as badly as the second season of Twin Peaks, a TV series that gripped the nation when it was released at the peak of the Microsoft trial, and bored people to death when it returned for round two. 

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