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Comment by SpicyLemonZest | Hacker News Reader

> Wait. What? An "anti-trust" trial against one of the five trillion dollar company in the world abusing its monopoly power is taken seriously on its claim it could cause "competitive harm"? Catch 22.

I don’t see the catch 22? Google is entitled to a legal presumption of innocence like any other organization, so the court can’t yet make decisions based on the premise that it is abusing its alleged monopoly power. It’s important for courts to avoid the perception that merely being the target of a lawsuit is a punishment, although of course in many ways it is.

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> I don’t see the catch 22? Google is entitled to a legal presumption of innocence like any other organization,

There's no presumption of innocence in civil matters.

Since this is being tried entirely as a civil matter (and not as a criminal case, as far as I am aware[1]), there's no presumption of innocence, no "beyond reasonable doubt", there's only "preponderance of evidence".

[1] Unless it really is being brought to the court by the state prosecution, in which case it probably is a criminal matter.

If I need the preponderance of the evidence to find you liable, you were presumed not liable. Obviously the presumption is not as strong as clear and convincing or reasonable doubt, but there’s no reason to say that there is no presumption of a sense of liability under this standard.

> If I need the preponderance of the evidence to find you liable, you were presumed not liable. Obviously the presumption is not as strong as clear and convincing or reasonable doubt, but there’s no reason to say that there is no presumption of a sense of liability under this standard.

Preponderance doesn't mean "a lot", it means "more than the opposing evidence", and during a trial the balance sways between both parties multiple times.

There is no presumption of innocence, as all it takes is for one party to make a claim and the other party to not explicitly deny that claim for the balance of probabilities to be in favour of the party that made the claim.

If I sue in in civil court, with a claim of "He called me a dirty cheating embezzler, which hurt my relations with my investor" and you simply don't show up, you may lose.

If you do show up and refuse to argue your case, you will* lose.

If you show up and argue "no I didn't", then the balance of probabilities is back in your favour.

It works exactly like the DMCA.

“If you do show up and refuse to argue your case, you will lose.”

If a defendant in a civil matter shows up and the plaintiffs case sucks, there is no obligation for the defense to put in a show and the jury (hell, even the judge) could rule in favor of the defendant who is presumed not liable.

I'm not saying that they are guilty.

But the judge shouldn't be completely oblivious of Alphabet's past history and its role as a "key market player" and just taking the claims at face value.

The argumentation doesn't sound very balanced tbh. More like: that's way above my league and I don't want to be the one jeopardizing national security, so I have to trust you on that.

In a sense, this is an admission that Alphabet is way too "big" already to be treated as an "ordinary company" which makes a due process a more complicated matter, euphemistically speaking. And I get that but as the substack article points out: atm right from the start it plays out way too far on Alphabet's terms.

That's the way I read it, I might be wrong.

This was even worse in the case against MS. They were, somehow, taken at face value that they would not abuse purchasing Activision. For... reasons?

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