They will still go to trial, but they know they will not be able to get a jury to side with them. Thus a judge deciding the outcome is less risky, and there's a quirk in the court procedures that says "if there are no monetary damages, then you can't have a jury trial". So I would call this a hack.

That's not exactly true.

A crime can always be tried, regardless of monetary damages.

Nowhere did I say that isn't the case. A crime cannot always be tried _via jury_, though.

Which in most cases would be a good thing since regular people don’t understand the law nor technical details whatsoever.

Only in the USA with your literally corrupt judges that would be a problem.

Because it's irrelevant.

The jury decides guilt or innocence, and then the judge issues the sentence.

No need for step 1.

In this case, the jury would also decide damages, including punitive damages above and beyond that requested by the prosecution.

Because only the rich are able to buy their way out of justice. No one wants to go to trial indeed.

I agree, but that’s not what happened here. Google was being sued for not paying that money; now they paid the money they owed, thus justice has been served.

Google was sued for anti-competitive practices, not for skipping for their bills. If you're claiming that justice has been served, could you also point us to any remedies that were taken for all the people they've wronged?

They are still going to trial for that though.

But $2.3M is the justice.

(Unless it should be more, and then that DoJ will sue for the full amount.)

Are you suggesting we ought to let overpaid lawyers battle it out, then get fined $2.3M?

I have a hard time convincing myself that evading jury trial "because of their technical and often abstract nature" of tech is justice.

They are 'avoiding' a a jury trial in lieu of a bench trial.

The prosecution tried to pull a fast one to get a jury trial by bundling a charge with monetary damages. Google's lawyers simply paid the claimed damages (tripled by law) and interest to remove the forced jury trial component in lieu of a bench trial.

Just to be clear, they are still going to trial for the antitrust charges.

Sorry... What is justice?

Surely it's not paying overpriced layers to argue back and forth in a courtroom for years?

That's just sometimes prerequisite to get to the actual justice.

Imagine actually reading the article before commenting.

Imagine reading the title.