Hope this gets nixed. It might be a relevant case back in 2020, but no longer a valid case now. From the wikipedia case:
"The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by illegally monopolizing the search engine and search advertising markets, most notably on Android devices, as well as with Apple and mobile carriers."
Where will be the search monopoly by Google in 2025? If search monopoly slowly evaporates, where will be the advertising monopoly?
Google's entire argument against being regulated has been 'We're not monopolizing search, people choose to use us!'
The latter part also happens to conveniently be true when you buy all the available space that a competitor would need -- default placement in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Android.
You don't get to rig the game and then claim the results actually demonstrate everyone naturally loves you.
On the flip side, if default placement was eliminated and browsers asked users which search engine they'd like on first launch...I still believe most users would pick Google anyway and the main loser would be Firefox as search engine placement is the majority of their revenue.
Furthermore, ChatGPT reaching 100m users in 2 months also suggests that browser placement isn't the biggest factor into where users send their queries.
The success of the Chrome browser on desktop proves otherwise, no?
It's interesting that the argument is "nobody can compete with defaults" when one of the proposed remedies is to break off the part of the company that was too successful at competing with defaults.
Chrome organic growth was powered by a special confluence of historical events:
- IE was bloated and lazy from being dominant
- Google controlled one of the most visited websites in the world (pre-mobile appification)
- V8 performance boosted the web's then-cutting-edge js features
Those are huge tailwinds.
In contrast to now, where Chrome spends more time trying to deprecate mv2, link user browing to a Google identity, and find a way to recreate tracking cookies.
When's the last time Chrome shipped innovation that made users' lives measurably better? Per tab processes?
The completion is a click away. If you can't deliver enough value for people to change the defaults or go to your site are you really doing a better job?
"The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 by illegally monopolizing the search engine and search advertising markets, most notably on Android devices, as well as with Apple and mobile carriers."
Where will be the search monopoly by Google in 2025? If search monopoly slowly evaporates, where will be the advertising monopoly?