The U.S. Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust cases against Google and Amazon harken back to the government’s landmark lawsuit that led to Microsoft’s 2001 agreement to modify its business amid allegations that it had illegally cornered the personal computer market. 

But antitrust lawyers and law professors said comparisons between the Microsoft case and the current claims against the online search engine Google and online retailer Amazon – while reminiscent – are inapt because the recent cases will be more difficult for the government to prove anticompetitiveness.