In this file photo, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., listens during a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File)
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a vocal critic of big tech, said the antitrust lawsuit filed on Tuesday by the Department of Justice against Google has the potential to become the biggest strike against monopoly power since the Microsoft case settled in 2001.
"This new case will be the most significant antitrust case in a generation and certainly since the Microsoft case, and I think it has the potential to be bigger than the Microsoft case because Google is a more powerful platform, a more powerful company than Microsoft was," Hawley told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Tuesday.
He agrees with critics of the Microsoft case that it should have gone further, but maintains that it still helped spur the startup boom of the early 2000s.
"People often say, well, it really wasn't that successful, but actually if you look at the surge in tech startups that occurred during and immediately after the Microsoft case, I think you can see that taking on Microsoft had a significant pro-competition, pro-innovation effect," he said.
The senator also stressed that this is a critical moment for antitrust law in the U.S.
"Let's just be honest here, the stakes are high for the Department of Justice," he said. "They need to prosecute this case to the fullest extent of their abilities, and they need to get a win. They need to show that antitrust law still has an important part to play in the 21st century economy, and I believe they'll do that."
Schools, shops, banks and Iceland's famous swimming pools shut on Tuesday as women in the volcanic island nation — including the prime minister — went on strike to push for an end to unequal pay and gender-based violence.
A group of 33 states including California and New York are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for harming young people’s mental health and contributing the youth mental health crisis by knowingly designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.
In a courtroom showdown five years in the making, Donald Trump's fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen testified Tuesday that he worked to boost the supposed value of the former president's assets to “whatever number Trump told us to."
Republican Tom Emmer abruptly abandoned his bid to become House speaker, withdrawing hours after winning the internal party nomination once it became clear he would not have enough support from GOP colleagues for the gavel.
Eighty-five-year-old Yocheved Lifshitz spoke of a “hell that we never knew before and never thought we would experience” as she described the harrowing Oct. 7 assault on her kibbutz by Hamas militants and the terror of being taken hostage into the Gaza Strip.
Jenna Ellis, an attorney and prominent conservative media figure, reached a deal with prosecutors Tuesday and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
