The ongoing antitrust lawsuit against tech behemoth Google, initiated by the Biden administration, has been largely conducted out of public sight.
This is due to Google's insistence on private proceedings to safeguard sensitive business information.
US District Judge Amit Mehta has been under fire for his compliance with Google's request. He justified his decision by stating his limited understanding of the tech sector and his belief that companies would only seek such protective measures when public exposure could pose a genuine risk.
"I am not anyone that understands the industry and the markets in the way that you do, Mehta expressed to attorneys during a pretrial hearing. "And so I take seriously when companies are telling me that if this gets disclosed, it's going to cause competitive harm."
According to the Wall Street Journal, Mehta deflected the criticism towards the Department of Justice's lawyers. He suggested they should inform him if it is "objectionable to go into closed session," as they are the representatives of the public interest.
Apple, who has a contract with Google to be the default search engine on Safari, has been implicated in the case. They too claimed that it was the DOJ who had "unilaterally" kept the proceedings from public view.
DOJ lawyer David Dahlquist refuted this claim in a statement, but acknowledged that while the US "has always been focused on open courtroom and public access," he and his team "have not objected to the closing when the third parties and Google have put that forward."
Since the trial's commencement on September 12, most of the proceedings have been conducted privately. However, a significant portion of the testimonies given on Tuesday and Wednesday were publicly accessible, hinting at a possible shift in Mehta's stance.
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