Google, with potential breakup looming over its search monopoly, backs down from muzzling workers

Google, with key hearings starting this month in a blockbuster anti-monopoly court case that could lead to its breakup, agreed to lift a gag order banning its employees from talking about the lawsuit, a union representing workers said.

In August, Google’s global-affairs chief Kent Walker in a company-wide email ordered workers to “refrain from commenting on this case, both internally and externally.”

The union for Google employees, the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, filed a charge with federal labor authorities alleging that the Mountain View firm’s edict violated federal labor law by limiting employees’ right to talk about an issue affecting their working conditions.

On Monday, the union announced a settlement with Google, and cited the importance of workers’ ability to discuss the case at a “crucial moment” when the company faces a possible court-ordered breakup from the anti-monopoly lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and dozens of states including California. The judge in the case will start hearing evidence April 21 in hearings to determine how Google’s monopoly power over internet search will be stripped.

Under the settlement, dated March 28, Google agreed to rescind Walker’s order, referred to by Google in the agreement as a “rule.”

“It’s encouraging that Google has reversed its course on restricting our federally protected right to free expression,” said Google software engineer and Alphabet Workers Union president Parul Koul.

Koul said the work of Google employees could be “dramatically” affected by court orders in the anti-monopoly case overseen by Judge Amit Mehta, who in August declared Google holds a monopoly on internet search.

Google on Tuesday said Walker’s order had no effect on employees’ ability to talk about their job conditions, and no one was disciplined for discussing the anti-monopoly case. The company said that to avoid lengthy litigation in court, it agreed with the union “to remind employees that they have the right to talk about their employment, as they’ve always been free to and regularly do.”

The Justice Department and states suing Google are demanding that it not only be barred from making deals with companies including Apple to give preference to Google’s search engine, but that it divest its dominant Chrome internet browser, seen by experts as a protective moat around the company’s wildly lucrative digital-advertising business.

Google’s Walker in a 2023 company blog post called the lawsuit “deeply flawed” and asserted that “people don’t use Google because they have to — they use it because they want to.” The company said in an October blog post that splitting off Chrome would break the browser and give Apple an advantage.

The Justice Department demand for divestiture of Chrome — included in a March court filing — provided a partial answer to the question of whether federal government anti-monopoly lawsuits targeting Google, Facebook parent Meta, Apple and Amazon would continue in President Donald Trump’s second administration. Major tech firms donated millions of dollars to Trump’s inauguration, and their CEOs sat on stage behind him as he began his second presidency. Google and Facebook parent Meta have cut social media content moderation and backed away from diversity programs amid attacks by Trump and fellow Republicans.

The Meta case, filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, accuses the Menlo Park company of creating a social networking monopoly protected via purchases of budding rival Instagram in 2012, and messaging app WhatsApp two years later. Meta in a 2021 court filing argued that the FTC had “no basis for its naked allegation that Facebook has or had a monopoly.”

The FTC in a 2021 court filing demanded Meta be ordered to sell or “reconstruct” Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta said in a statement last month that evidence at the trial “will show that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp have been good for competition and consumers.”

That trial is set to start Monday, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Zuckerberg has been visiting Washington to seek a settlement from Trump and White House officials.

Google is fighting a second anti-monopoly lawsuit by the Justice Department that claims it has a monopoly on software that puts ads on web pages. The company in a 2023 court filing denied having such a monopoly and argued in a September blog post that it goes “above and beyond legal requirements in making tools that others can use.”

The Justice Department is also suing Cupertino iPhone titan Apple, alleging it “illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones” by making it harder for consumers to switch to other companies’ devices. Apple in an August court filing claimed the lawsuit was “based on the false premise that iPhone’s success has come not through building a superior product that consumers trust and love, but through Apple’s intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats.”

The FTC is also suing Amazon, claiming in the 2023 lawsuit that the company’s “exclusionary conduct … prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging.”

Amazon said in a court filing last year that its matching of rivals’ discounts, recommendations of competitively priced offers, and fast, reliable shipping are “commonplace” and promote competition.