Wikipedia. Id. These firms answer queries and therefore compete with Google. Secondarily, even if there is a product market for general search services, Google argues that it lacks monopoly power in it. The emergence of other search competitors, Google says, proves that barriers to entry are not as high as Plaintiffs claim.
- A. Principles of Market Definition
The court starts with market definition.[1] “[T]he relevant market is defined as the area of effective competition. Typically this is the ‘arena within which significant substitution in consumption or production occurs.’” Ohio v. Am. Express Co., 585 U.S. 529, 543 (2018) (quoting Areeda & Hovenkamp, Fundamentals of Antitrust Law § 5.02 (4th ed. 2017)) (internal quotation marks omitted). A relevant market must include all products that are “reasonably interchangeable by consumers for the same purposes,” Microsoft, 253 F.3d. at 52 (internal quotation marks omitted), “even though the products themselves are not entirely the same,” FTC v. Sysco Corp., 113 F. Supp. 3d 1, 25 (D.D.C. 2015). Courts should combine different products or services in a single market when “that combination reflects commercial realities.” Grinnell, 384 U.S. at 572.
Whether goods are reasonable substitutes depends on two factors: functional interchangeability and cross-elasticity of demand. Sysco, 113 F. Supp. 3d at 25–26. Functionally interchangeable products are those that consumers view as substitutes for each other. See id. The products comprising the relevant market need not be entirely the same. So long as “consumers can substitute the use of one for the other, then the products in question will be deemed ‘functionally interchangeable.’” FTC v. Arch Coal, Inc., 329 F. Supp. 2d 109, 119 (D.D.C. 2004); see also du Pont, 351 U.S. at 393 (“Determination of the competitive market for commodities
- ↑ While this legal standard is identified as part of the court’s discussion of the general search services market, it also applies to the advertiser-side markets discussed in Part III.
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