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Google Senate hearing proves politicians do not understand how tech markets work

There were, however, a couple of key areas where Republicans and Democrats united in their bashing of Google. One area was their narrow definition of the market. Instead of looking at the overarching ad market, in which Google seems far less of a dominant force, both sides sought to shrink the scope of the market down to a highly particularized market setting, making Google seem much more like a monopoly — all this to serve political talking points rather than reality.

Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel for [NetChoice], recognized this immediately, pointing out it would be foul play for politicians and regulators to apply such logic to consumer welfare standards in antitrust, because at that point, they are merely defining markets in such a way to get their preferred results.