Google and Apple now threatened by the US antitrust laws that helped build their technology empires

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE
AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has launched a double-barreled antitrust attack on Google’s dominant search and Apple’s trendsetting iPhone. The legal offensive is reviving memories of the epic battle that hobbled Microsoft before it roared back to yet again become the world’s most valuable company. The parallels to the Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case in 1998 could provide an window into the potential breakthroughs that could be unleashed and new empires built if regulators succeed in their current attempts to crack down on Google and Apple now. It’s conceivable Google and Apple may never have created so many popular products or become as powerful as they are now if Microsoft hadn’t been reined in a quarter century ago.