> I'm confused about what the remedy is supposed to be, or what outcome the AGs are seeking.
Further down the article this is mentioned:
> If the federal government is in fact in the beginning stages of antitrust action against Google, what should we expect to see publicly?
> They’ve said that they’re going to file a complaint in the summer, which is really quick. So that would be obviously something to watch. And then the states are going to presumably file a complaint also at some juncture, probably after that. So then we will see what those complaints say, what kind of conduct they allege as being anti-competitive. Or perhaps the federal government doesn’t file a complaint, but they settle. They say, “Well, here are the six things we didn’t like, but you’ve changed your behavior, and so therefore that’s remedied the lost competition and we’re not going to bring a case.”
The situation that they are trying to address is a novel one and will likely require a novel solution. The AG's are not business people; their interests are in protecting their constituents from harm caused by monopolistic players in the market. How that is to be done, remains unclear.
I imagine the prosecutors will learn more about Google during the course of this process and they will come up with a solution that would allay their concerns.
If it looks a bit like bullying, it kind of is. The Government is the other pillar of power and steps in occasionally when its interests (usually things relating to the betterment of society, not always) need to be protected. It has the power to control the destiny of corporations that grow too big and "abuse" their power (whatever that might mean). This is how society works; if corporations operated with unfettered control over everything, society would quickly degrade into a dystopian hellhole (this is unfortunately already happening in the US, see the freeze on minimum wages at the federal level).