Sources: DOJ began work on a possible Google antitrust investigation after brokering a deal with FTC, which considered and opted not to pursue the case in 2013
on 2nd tour of duty at agency—Delrahim previously represented corporate clients incl. Google during its purchase of DoubleClick in 2007" https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : Bloomberg too has confirmed that DOJ has the handoff from the FTC and is preparing probe of $goog Makan Delrahim, as all you kids at home know, worked on Google's behalf in the Doubleclick acquisition. Mark Seibel / @markseibel : Europe has already fined Google $9 billion for anti-trust violations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Richard Blumenthal / @senblumenthal : Stiff DOJ scrutiny is overdue. Google mines & monetizes data from each facet of our lives. Its apparent predatory practices—exploiting its behemoth power—stifle innovators & crush competitors, harming consumers. Backbone is needed to provide greater consumer choice. https://twitter.com/... James Wang / @jwangark : “Don't be evil” was an idea as simple as it was wonderful. They almost had it. https://twitter.com/... Carrie A. Goldberg / @cagoldberglaw : If DOJ prosecutes Google for anti-trust, DTJ's administration will at least have one hash mark in the “good things I did for society while in office” column https://www.nytimes.com/... Tom Warren / @tomwarren : Google facing antitrust probe in the US. This is far too late from US regulators, and they need to now look closely at Google's web empire and how the company consistently leverages this to thwart browser and OS competition. https://twitter.com/... Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : Justice Department Is Preparing Antitrust Investigation of Google(What's the desired result here? Break off YouTube? Everything under Alphabet? Regulate anti-competive search practices? Ugh, Friday night...)https://www.wsj.com/ ... Alex Heath / @alexeheath : The DoJ is indeed preparing an antitrust investigation into Google. Source tells me competitiors to Google have been making presentations to the FTC in recent weeks with the goal of spurring an investigation. Google is declining to comment. https://www.theinformation.com/ ... Tony Romm / @tonyromm : Confirmed: Google facing a potential federal antitrust probe at DOJ, my sources tell me. (Credit to WSJ which beat me by a little.) Story tk. Hamza Shaban / @hshaban : WSJ: The Justice Department Is preparing an antitrust investigation of Google - Expected to examine search practices and other businesses - The FTC ended its probe into Google years ago but will defer to the DOJ this time https://www.wsj.com/... Stasys Bielinis / @staska : Hot damn! There may still be a place for true bipartisanship in the US. I mean Barr's @TheJusticeDept on the same page with @ewarren on an issue this important? So Dems and GOP can agree on something - as when big tech gets too big for its own good https://www.techmeme.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : Okay, this is going to be an interesting one —> FTC and DOJ had to figure out who was going handle further antitrust action on Google, per WSJ. Justice Department gets the nod, and now it's “preparing to closely examine Google's business practices.” Garry / @garrytan : Microsoft underperformed for more than 17 years thanks to the 2001 DOJ consent decree. It shook a megatech giant to its core. Are we going to see history repeat? https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The FTC looked hard at Google's search practices in 2013 and walked away; per this report, the DOJ brokered a handoff of the case and began preparing its own investigation, with antitrust chief Makan Delrahim — who once represented Google as a client on the DoubleClick acquisition — now on his second tour at the agency overseeing it. The Wall Street Journal separately confirmed the probe targets search and other businesses.
What makes this worth tracking is how much of the later arc was already visible here: within months Google confirmed receiving a civil-investigative demand for records tied to prior investigations, by late 2020 the DOJ and state AGs were weighing a forced sale of Chrome and parts of the ad business (divestiture considerations), and by 2024 the DOJ was choosing among breakup and data-sharing remedies after a monopoly ruling (remedy deliberations).
First-order effects
- Google moves from a dormant 2013 file to an active federal investigation into its search and adjacent businesses, with the FTC's decision not to pursue the case formally reversed via the DOJ handoff.
- Delrahim's DOJ owns the case directly — putting a former outside counsel to Google on the DoubleClick deal in charge of scrutinizing the company he once advised.
Second-order effects
- State attorneys general are pulled in alongside the DOJ, broadening the front from one federal probe to a multi-jurisdiction effort that later expands scope to Chrome and the ads business.
- Political pressure escalates immediately — Senator Blumenthal publicly calls for stiff DOJ scrutiny — raising the cost for any future soft landing like the FTC's 2013 exit.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the 2013 non-pursuit becomes the exception that proves the new rule: platform conduct cases that agencies once declined now run through to structural remedies such as divestitures or mandated data sharing.
- The jurisdictional handoff model — one agency's abandoned file becoming another's opening case — emerges as a repeatable mechanism for reviving dormant antitrust scrutiny of dominant tech firms.
The trend: US antitrust enforcement is swinging from the FTC's 2013-era tolerance of Google's market power toward structural remedies, with the DOJ's 2019 handoff-probe as the pivot point.