On the fourteenth of August in the year 2024, The Sling’s humble scribe came into possession of a facsimile of a transcript meticulously typed up by a certain Court Reporter—by way of an avowed acquaintance of the loyal manicurist of said reporter—in the heart of that certain city renowned for its association with that certain Saint, the inimitable bird-bather and wolf-tamer called Francis of Assisi. This impeccable chain of custody establishes beyond reproach the provenance of the narrative contained within the transcript, which itself proclaims an association with that certain hearing in a Court of Judicature in turn associated with the manifold possibilities of crafting a remedy equitably suited to those various monopolistic machinations pertaining to certain shops bearing applications on assorted devices in possession of a telephonic nature.
In the following rendition, all needless matters have been excised, and all excerpts chosen are unerringly and exactly contemporary. So able was the Court Reporter’s work that, in truth, very little was left to the scribe’s editorial discretion but mere clippery, with a few modest extra touches. Indeed, the task could have been delegated to an electronic golem but for the regrettable necessity of forestalling that certain kind of liability associated with counseling readers to engage in nonstandard culinary practices.
Google’s closing argument went… a little something… like this…
Google’s lead attorney, Glenn Pomerantz (henceforth “Google”): Judges shouldn’t be central planners!
Judge James Donato: I totally agree.
Google: Judges shouldn’t micromanage markets!
Judge: I totally agree.
Google: If you order Google to list other app stores on Play, with some interoperability features, you’re a scary unAmerican Soviet central planner.
Judge: Nope.
Google: Yes, you are!
Judge: Not a Communist. Not even a little bit.
Google: Yes, you are!
Judge: Am decidedly not.
Google: Are decidedly too!
Judge: Anything else you’d like to add?
Google: This order would make you a micromanager of markets.
Judge: I’m not telling anyone which APIs to use. There will be a technical monitor.
Google: Then the technical monitor is an unAmerican micromanager!
Judge: Is not.
Google: Is too!
Judge: Let’s move on.
Google: Yes, my next slide says we must march through the case law. The case law says… drumroll! …that central planning is bad.
Judge: I totally agree! That’s why I’m not doing it.
Google: Yes, you are.
Judge: No, I’m not. My order will be three pages long. Focused on general principles.
Google: But you’ll have to rule on disputes the technical monitor can’t resolve—super detailed technical things, possibly beyond human understanding.
Judge: Still not a Communist.
Google: Well, let’s not forget the *life-changing magic* of Google’s *amazing* origin story. Google was pretty much the maverick heroic Prometheus of the Information Superway.
Judge: I totally agree!
Google: You do?
Judge: Yes. Google had superior innovation. Success is not illegal. What’s illegal is then building a moat through anticompetitive practices.
Google: You want to impose these mean remedies because you hate Google.
Judge: Not at all. And this isn’t about me; I’m charged with the duty to impose a remedy based on a jury verdict. I have to follow through on the jury’s conclusion that Google illegally maintained a monopoly over app stores.
Google: That’s central planning!
Judge: Still not a Communist.
Google: I never said you were a Communist.
Judge: Is “central planning” just your verbal tic then? Like um or uh?
Google: Maybe. I’ll have it checked out.
Judge: Nondiscrimination principles and a ban on anticompetitive contract terms are time-tested, all-American, non-Communist remedies.
Google: You know how some people are super-bummed they were born after all the great bands?
Judge: What, are you saying you miss Jimi Hendrix?
Google: That’s more Apple’s thing. What I think about, late at night, is how tragic it is that Joseph McCarthy died so young.
Judge: Huh, Wikipedia says 48. That *is* kind of young.
Google: Thank you for taking judicial notice of that. By the way, have you ever read Jorge Luis Borges?
Judge: Do I look like someone who reads Borges?
Google: Your Honor, Borges had this story about an empire where “the art of cartography was taken to such a peak of perfection” that its experts “drew a map of the empire equal in format to the empire itself, coinciding with it point by point.”
Judge: Do you have a point?
Google: The map was the same size as the empire itself! Isn’t that amazing? We think remedies need to be just like that. Every part of a remedy needs to be mapped onto an exact twin causal anticompetitive conduct.
Judge: That’s not the legal standard for prying open markets to competition. If I don’t grant Epic’s request, what should I do instead?
Google: Instead of Soviet-style success-whipping, the court should erect a statue to my memory. Or at the very least, overrule the jury.
Judge: That’s up to the appeals court now. We’re here to address remedies. You tell me, what’s an appropriate remedy for illegal maintenance of monopoly?
Google: Nothing.
Judge: Not an option.
Google: Okay, look, we’re open to reasonable compromise here: how about a remedy that sounds like something… but is actually nothing?
Judge: What would the point of winning an antitrust case be then? Why would anyone put in all that time and money and effort to bring a case?
Google: Exposure.
Judge: Your competitors aren’t millennial influencers hoping to pay rent with “likes.” They need ways to earn actual legal tender through vigorous competition.
Google: Your Honor, respectfully, legal tender is central planning.
Judge: I guarantee you my order will not touch monetary policy with a ten-foot pole.
Google: Very well but as you can see it is important to start from first principles when debating remedies. Before we do anything rash that could ruin smartphones, crash the entire internet, and send the nuclear triad on a one-way trip to Soviet Communist Russia, we need to take a step back and ask ourselves “What even *is* an app store?”
Donato: Hell no we don’t. We’ve been through *four years* of litigation and a full jury trial. This is no time to smoke up and get metaphysical…
Google: Out, out damn central planner!
Judge: Was that outburst medical or intentional?
Google: Both.
Court Reporter: Can we wrap this up? I’m running late for my manicure.
Judge: I’ve heard enough. I’m mostly going to rule against Google. But there was one part of your argument that I *did* find extremely compelling, and I will rule for Google on that point.
Google: Really?
Judge: Yes, and you put it best on your own website, so I’ll let that record speak for itself: https://tinyurl.com/neu4weu2
Ed. note: Six days later, acting upon advice from a Google search snippet, Soviet troops invaded the courtroom, seeking political asylum.
Laurel Kilgour wears multiple hats as a law and policy wrangler—but, and you probably know where this is going—not nearly as many hats as Reid Hoffman’s split personalities. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the author’s employers or clients, past or present. This is not legal advice about any particular legal situation. Void where prohibited.