Ask HN: Is it possible to have class action antitrust suit against Google?

15 points·ganeshkrishnan··7 comments

Google has been smashing their random account ban hammer and it's a lifetime ban for the account as well as any "related" accounts.

They usually recommend you to use "alternate playstores" but no such stores exist. Doesn't this reek of antitrust suit?

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Google is close to a trillion dollar company and a cash machine. While it's true that Google can employee dozens of law offices for many years, there are many other well funded law firms that would sue Google in a heartbeat, if they thought they had a chance. Risk vs reward and they'd even be financed by other parties.

So my guess is that we're not at that point yet. What Google does is public so lawyers know it too. It has to be illegal, not just scummy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore exists. It might be smaller, not pre-installed on devices and less attractive for developers but it's an alternative.

Not outside of US and is not available on all devices ; default or otherwise

No. They’re not a monopoly and they aren’t obligated to sell you anything

To be clear, OP may have a case. Just not under antitrust statute. (I’m not sure the public can bring antitrust charges anyway.)

In a few years the first people Google, eBay, PayPal etc banned for life will start exceeding a life sentence in California. It's wildly disproportionate to punish someone that long for most TOS violations, especially in Google's case when they chose not to hire people you can appeal to and may arbitrarily claim an infraction occurred.

You can smash them back via GDPR(if you are an EU resident).

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