AAI’s Kathleen Bradish: Federal Judge’s Rejection of Google Play Settlement Signals Heightened Scrutiny of Big Tech

In the Bloomberg Law article published on March 6, Google Play Deal Rebuke Puts Settling Defendants on Notice, AAI Vice President and Director of Legal Advocacy Kathleen Bradish emphasized the increasing willingness of judges to recognize Big Tech’s harm to consumers and the need for fair compensation. From the article:

Donato’s reaction shows judges do view defendants’ conduct as inappropriate and will take that into account when assessing the fairness of deals, said Kathleen Bradish, vice president and director of legal advocacy at the American Antitrust Institute. The states accused Google of extracting large sums of money from consumers by steering them to Google Play’s billing system to buy apps and in-app content, and prohibiting app developers from suggesting alternative ways to purchase content.

“You are seeing a lot of judges more willing to find that Big Tech is harming consumers,” she said.

Google and the states can now either try to convince Donato that his concerns are misplaced, or tweak the terms of the deal with various strategies, such as raising payouts higher than the $2 minimum per eligible consumer, Bradish said.

“All the parties have information about where Judge Donato was leaning,” Bradish said. “They could always provide more money. The judge definitely seemed to be upset by how little the individuals would be getting out of this. Or they could be creative and come up with modification of some sort to their processes.”