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Google avoids jury trial by sending $2.3 million check to US government (arstechnica.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 76 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Sounds a bit unusual, but not unfair - Google just preemptively paid all of the damages that the government was seeking in this particular case, which is the only thing the jury would have been needed to determine. So having a jury would be a complete waste of the jury's time. The rest of the case would be up to the judge anyway.

If the prosecutor thinks they could get more now maybe they should have asked for more earlier. I think this may have been a miscalculation on the prosecution's side.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not quite...

The government's damages expert calculated damages that were "much higher" than the amount cited by Google, the US filing said. In last week's filing, the higher damages amount sought by the government was redacted.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

That's what the government said after Google paid. But also in the article:

Google said it contained "every dollar the United States could conceivably hope to recover under the damages calculation of the United States' own expert."

...

In a filing on Wednesday, Google said the DOJ previously agreed that its claims amounted to less than $1 million before trebling and pre-judgment interest. The check sent by Google was for the exact amount after trebling and interest, the filing said. But the "DOJ now ignores this undisputed fact, offering up a brand new figure, previously uncalculated by any DOJ expert, unsupported by the record, and never disclosed," Google told the court.

Siding with Google at today's hearing, Brinkema "said the amount of Google's check covered the highest possible amount the government had sought in its initial filings," the Associated Press reported.

So it sounds to me like the prosecution quoted a figure they thought was high, Google said "sure, we'll pay that," and then the prosecution scrambled to say "no, wait, we want more!" After the fact.

Google's far from my favourite company, but I really don't like the idea of the prosecution being able to arbitrarily jack up their demands after someone agrees to meet them.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The nice thing about trials of corporations is discovery. We have evidence of Google intentionally making search worse, increasing the time spent looking for results, and this improving ad sales. All that came out in discovery.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Which also makes the trial worth holding.

I don't like this tendency at all. It could be considered not as dangerous when MS and Google and others were like glorified typewriter makers.

But now they affect quite a lot, and this being allowed leads us to catastrophes.