Google gets away almost scot-free in US search antitrust case
computerworld.com
computerworld.com
Perhaps the US is too lax on antitrust, but if you, literally anyone reading this, can stop using Google search on every device you own in the next 5 minutes, I just can't see that as a monopoly. Perhaps another word and legislation is required.
You can't even argue the network effect like you can with chat apps or social networks. You can literally cut Google search from your life forever before your lunch break is over.
Nobody, including Google, is stopping you from doing that.
Note, this is different from actual monopoly of railways (I have to use Central Pacific Railroad) or ISP (My city only has Comcast) or electricity (If I want electricity, I have to use PG&E).
The barometer is whether there's meaningful alternative. Can I do X without the $company in question = not a monopoly.
You can ride a horse. Ergo, not a monopoly.
>ISP (My city only has Comcast)
You've got starlink. Not a monopoly.
> You can ride a horse. Ergo, not a monopoly.
Are you really saying that there is no other search engine you can use besides Google?
In 1870, if you wanted to get from Chicago to San Francisco, it would be facetious to claim that Union Pacific did not have a monopoly on that route. No, Union Pacific wasn't forcing you to board their train. Just like you can Ctrl+T over to duckduckgo.com/ or bing.com/ or kagi.com/ in seconds, and never go back to Google. You could avoid the railroad monopoly by 'just' riding a horse, or walking, or taking a boat down the Mississippi and launching a sailing expedition around Cape Horn. That's still a monopoly.
And if your entire business strategy is to have a website and depend on Google search results to drive traffic, you are doing it wrong as many news organizations like Buzzfeed found out.
I do occasional self promotion and “thought leadership” bullshit to put my name out there. I go to where the eyeballs are - LinkedIn. It’s far more likely that the people I want to reach are on LinkedIn than my blog that I don’t have a link to anywhere. I just use it as a publicly accessible place to workshop my writing and thoughts before I post them to LinkedIn.
And I will play the world’s smallest fiddle for advertisers even then, if you have a product to sale to consumers, you are probably better off using Amazon or a Meta app to advertised. It’s better targeting and ads are less likely to be blocked.
Just use an ad blocker. O wait all the chromium browsers just made that harder with manifest v3. 75% of browsers are chromium based?
I don’t think it’s fair to compare digital services to something like PGE. Fundamentally different.
Google lost the case. They just weren’t punished how they should’ve been.
Edit: wow and how could I forget 8.8.8.8 or google’s own transmission lines!
Isnt adding Google Analytics to the website a decision solely and independently made by the website in question?
It is like saying, I dont like Coca Cola but when I go to McDonald's to eat food, they only serve Coca Cola. Hence, Coca Cola is.. bad? McDonald's is free to chose any business partner they like, and you insisting that McDonald's shouldnt use Coca Cola sounds silly.
My point is that it’s incredibly difficult to avoid Google. Especially for people who aren’t nerds.
In the US, iOS has 60% market share and installing an ad blocker is a matter of going to the App Store and installing it and then enabling in settings. They all walk you through the process. It’s the same on the Mac with the Mac App Store.
Google pays Apple to be the default search engine.
Google transmits our data undersea.
You can’t easily avoid them!
But no one has been proposing that Google not be allowed to have underseas cables
The argument is that you can cut Google out of your life. The reality is you can’t and many don’t even realize how deeply intertwined it is.
I sometimes dont understand the logic of some people.
Is coca cola then a monopoly on soft drinks? I would say obviously yes.
This is the situation the current internet and applications are in. They only service users who utilize Google in some type of way, for the majority of apps.
Its deceptive to say "well it's just that one bank". No, that one bank is an example. That's not the breadth of it, and we both know that.
You are doing the same mistake PP did, projecting from yourself to others. Not everyone can do this or knows the resons why it is important.
If the search market was that flexible, it wouldnt really make sense to spend a fortune to become the default SE.
I use Safari on my Mac because Chrome is worse on battery life and doesn’t integrate as well with the rest of my digital life. I use Gmail. But at the end of the day, it’s just another one of my emails.
Say I'm a new search engine startup that has some better tech than Google has, we invented a better wheel. How hard would it be to compete on merit?
As far as how hard is it to compete, it’s not the governments job to force people to use your alternate search engine. Choosing another search engine is literally just a click away.
You like traditional search engines? Use bing, ddg.
You like AI powered ones? ChatGPT, Perplexity
You want to pay for your search? Kagi
You want to plant trees each you search (!)? Ecosia
There are soooo many choices. But people choosing Google out of free will seems to be a bad thing for Google.
Yeah sure you can avoid typing google.com and think you just ghosted Google forever, but that won't end Google's relationship with you as it runs deeper than you know through its advertisement and tracking platform.
And what about services beyond search at this point?
Youtube, GMail, Google Calendar, GoogleFi, Maps, Play store (movies, apps), Photos, Drive.
I can try stop using those services immediately, but with a huge cost of data and connectivity loss (there's no easy email redirection, accounts are usually tied to emails). You'll also miss out on things that don't have a nice alternative and you are socially pulled into (green/blue messages in iMessage within the US or having WhatsApp abroad), can you stop clicking into links to documents, presentations and videos that people share?
Also, I'm curious, how many of the things you listed would be normally used by a prolific user of Apple hardware and software? Just YouTube, right?
Doesnt this mean that you get certain value from Google. Are you upset that one company is creating products that you find indispensible. Or are you upset that others have not been able to build products that you like?
This is like saying "Apple M series chips are sooo good. Apple sucks"
Can I stop using GMail? yes, but not really. Same as I wasn't able to switch phone companies 20 years ago because reliance on the phone number to stay connected (and abusive contracts).
> Doesn't this mean that you get certain value from Google.
Yes, but that's no the issue, otherwise I'd have no reason to use it in the first place, right? The problem is that it's hard to migrate.
This case was about consumer search.
This case alleges they dominate consumer visiting and searching their website. It does not allege they dominate advertisers buying ads.
You cannot have a website anymore without paying tribute to gatekeeper Google.
Consumers can switch any time they want, but there is no incentive for them, they don't have to pay when googling for "nike".
But even though there are only 3 companies in the world that build what I build, all those three companies pay thousands of euros a month so users can find them, even on the exact search terms.
No you can't do this in 5 mins across all your devices. Not unless you are running some software program to achieve this which will override a tonne of defaults and hidden settings. And some devices will always use Google search.
Maybe if your only device is a barebones Linux PC.
First few literally broke apart big companies, then we have Microsoft with “just don’t make IE default browser” and now basically nothing for google, forget selling off chrome now, not even banned from making search deals, just “maybe in a few years perhaps reconsider the search deals? Totally non binding tho”
For Google, or for everyone? Like Apple shouldnt be allowed by get money for Ads on AppStore?
If you have a company/product/service, how would you attract customers?
By offering a good product that people will happily recommend to others.
I've de-Googled my life as best I can, but I know how little it actually matters. Now that Google is clearly on the path of closing up Android, I hope the Linux phone effort gets reinvigorated.
These companies are now even more emboldened, and with market caps bigger than the GDP of most countries, there is no one to stop them. Every politician has a number, and this administration has shown that open bribes are legal and expected.
Good luck prosecuting any big tech when they can pay billions of dollars to the administration to make anything go away.
GDP is a measurement of flow within a certain timespan, market capitalization is a guess by the market of the total potential at a specific point in time.
Maybe I'm just misinterpreting your words.
I think this decision would have been the same regardless of who won. As for the next few years... Harris was clearly signalling that her FTC would be a return to rubber stamping mergers and acting only against the most egregious corporate actions, and even then only when the penalties wouldn't be substantial. I doubt very much that her appointment to FTC Chair would be much different than the current Andrew Ferguson.
Nothing I've written endorses Trump or his actions. But we have to be a little bit more realistic about the interests that Harris was aiming to represent.
We can say that Harris would have been better than Trump in the aggregate, while also prioritizing the interests of Business over those of Consumers. Both these things can be true.
[1]https://jacobin.com/2024/12/harris-khan-antitrust-west-elect...
I kinda wish the EU would kick out google/facebok/x. It would hurt in the short term but would be way better in the long term…
And as the things look - US administration is incapable ot curbing their cancerish monopolies…
It seems that Big Tech's ingratiation of itself to the current administration using money and lent "credibility" is yielding their desired slaps on the wrists when a spanking was justified by the harm they have done to consumers.
What makes you think an independent "chrome" browser wont put Google Search as the default search engine?
Are you sure about that? Think again.
I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, by the way, just stating the facts.
More discussion:
Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108548
The worst possible antitrust outcome
When I do use Google, I end up using that crappy Gemini blurb at the top a lot more than I would like to admit as well, so they are definitely still prime contenders in the AI space even before looking at the Gemini platform itself. Even with all the things it gets wrong (the model in its search is definitely one of the worst), it is often more useful than not to me, and helps point me in the right direction more quickly.
This could all be just another repeat of the browser wars where Chrome overtook Firefox, but it isn't yet set in stone. Google definitely seems a little bit worried about the future with AI.
If you buy a device whose operating system is developed and marketed by Google, why would you have any expectation to be able to switch from Google?
And Android doesn’t even have 50% market share in the US so it’s definitely not a monopoly.
Not impossible, but very hard for many.
https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
I’m almost sure that a third of the world’s population is not “in the industry”
My argument was that for the average user it's hard to not deal with Google, you're yet to provide a single actual argument that I'm wrong.
You haven’t provided a single argument where an iPhone user needs Google for anything.
Your argument about only people “in the industry” using Adblockers was wrong.
You're arguing against your own interpretation of what I'm saying. People use the defaults, people use YouTube, people use Google, people use Gmail, people use Google Maps.
30% use adblockers which are manifestv2 style, they won't block anything companies want you to see. You can't block ads in apps.
Tell me exactly what website ads are not being blocked by my 1Blocker extension? BTW, Safari for iOS has supported more permissive browser extensions for a few years now.
Also, what does ads in apps have to do with Google? 90% of apps that are downloaded and revenue generating directly via in app purchases and I assume ads are games (came out in the Epic v Apple trial). Google isn’t even a player in that category of ads for the most part. They definitely aren’t the dominant player.
I can't tell you EXACTLY which sites aren't blocked by your domain based adblocker, I'm not an adblock developer.
If you believe Google doesn't deserve antitrust measures for their duopoly with Apple you're free to do so, you're still arguing against things you interpret freely to make your points.
> I can't tell you EXACTLY which sites aren't blocked by your domain based adblocker, I'm not an adblock developer.
So in other words you just threw something out there without any evidence…
> If you believe Google doesn't deserve antitrust measures for their duopoly with Apple you're free to do so, you're still arguing against things you interpret freely to make your points.
The case was never about mobile and Google doesn’t have even 50% of the market in the US in mobile. Unless you have some evidence that Apple and Google illegally colluded in the mobile market, there is no law against being part of a “duopoly”.
And you still haven’t said why an iPhone user needs Google or default of having YouTube and using Google Maos data over a decade ago is relevant in 2025.
You won this time!
I'd like to fly in a Logitech made airplane.
Yeah, no. Some things are hard, and only some companies (at a certain scale) can do it.
But you seem to be agreeing with me. I was responding to this comment:
> user agency is still a thing - and there are alternatives
Would you say that was an accurate and realistic comment?
Of all these generic OEMs you're thinking of, how many do not integrate with Google's Play Store? The only one I know of is Huawei, but that's just another unconstrained megacorp to avoid.
unfair maybe on consumers (google customers ie those who pay google, not those who use google products) but a very good and pragmatic decision by the U.S gvt.
let your homegrown champions stay strong and keep getting stronger.
because the alternative if Google got broken up, a foreign competitor would replace google not a homegrown one.
markets don't work the way libertarians think.
...Until they start getting banned abroad because your government openly tries to manipulate election in ally countries. And once that happens, you're perpetually weaker and your reputation is done for a century.
People arguing for this kind of hard power are just too weak-minded to understand the extent and strength of US' historical soft power.
> markets don't work the way libertarians think.
Well, if you keep pushing down that line, markets won't work at all, and welcome back to 19th century's gunboat policy, except people have nukes now.
As they say, "TACO" (Trump Always Chickens Out)