⁍ Critics have argued for years that Google and other Big Tech companies have too much power and routinely abuse their dominant market positions.

---

⁍ Government efforts to rein in powerful technology companies have historically proven challenging.

---

⁍ In Europe, regulators have filed three different antitrust actions against Google over the past decade and imposed more than 8 billion euros ($9.46 billion) in fines.

---

– It’s been a long time coming. The Justice Department and 11 states filed a lawsuit against Google on Tuesday, alleging that the company uses its massive reach to steer consumers away from competitors and toward its own services, Reuters reports. The complaint accuses Google of giving itself an unfair edge in search results and of abusing its market-dominating Android mobile operating system. “Google gives itself an unfair edge in search results by giving itself an unfair edge,” states the lawsuit, which accuses the company of giving itself a “bad reputation” and giving itself an unfair edge by pushing its own comparison shopping service, Google Shopping, in its search results, the New York Times reports. Google shares fell more than 2% in after-hours trading, reports the Wall Street Journal, which notes that the suit is the “most momentous antitrust showdown since Washington took on Microsoft more than two decades ago.” But experts tell Reuters that any changes to Google’s role in people’s lives are probably years away. “They shouldn’t see this as ‘the beginning of the end,'” says a University of New York law school professor. “It certainly wouldn’t go to the guts of what some people think is wrong with Google.”