Finance & economics | Free exchange

The case against Google hinges on an antitrust “mistake”

Trustbusters are seeking to break up the tech giant, undoing a 15-year-old merger

IN 1912 America’s Supreme Court ruled that a coalition of 14 railroad proprietors had used their joint ownership of a bridge across the Mississippi river, near the St Louis terminal, to unlawfully stifle competition. The crossing gave the railroad trust a chokehold over traffic to and from the city’s main terminal. St Louis was an important railway hub. In the court’s opinion, the monopoly power over the railway bridge was therefore a means to foreclose the business of rival rail operators across America.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “In search of a problem”

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