> Civil rights groups tracking the trial have previously criticized Mehta for protecting Google's privacy over the public's interest. And last week—as the DOJ c

> Civil rights groups tracking the trial have previously criticized Mehta for protecting Google's privacy over the public's interest. And last week—as the DOJ claimed Google was hiding evidence by training employees to avoid words monopolists use in office communications—Mehta allowed Google to seal off testimony from a Verizon executive despite the DOJ's objections. The DOJ seems increasingly concerned that blocking public access to key facts in the trial establishing Google's alleged monopoly might hurt its case. Emphasis mine - it sounds like this judge is leaning quite amenably to Google at this stage. He is giving them quite a few concessions in this case. This is essentially allowing Google to hide some of the DOJ’s most compelling evidence from the public. That said, this article is a bit hard to follow though exactly what is happening. I suspect even the author isn’t quite sure the exact nature of the evidence, which speaks to the effectiveness, for Google, of conducing the trial with confidentiality. So more interesting bits: > "Supporting the conclusion that Google is a monopolist," the DOJ said that its accounting expert, Christine Hammer, will testify "that Google turns an exceptionally high profit margin"—[redacted] percent—"on its search and search advertising businesses." Without knowing the profit margin precisely, the concern is that it might be difficult for the public to come to the same conclusion as the DOJ does about whether those margins are "exceptionally high," and that might make a difference in how the public views Google's alleged monopolistic behaviors. I mean this is a real phenomenon. I would probably personally feel differently if that number is 5%, 10%, 100%, 1500%… in fact that’s basically one of the only numbers you need to know. If that return is excessively high compared to other non-monopolized businesses, that speaks to monopolistic forces creating barriers to competition flourishing in the space.