Is This The End of Google?

TL;DR - The Department of Justice won its antitrust lawsuit against Google in April, now they’ll be voting on a remedy to help break Google’s strangehold on advertising. The DoJ hints at forcing Google to sell their Chrome browser (which 90% of people use) or their Android operating system.

The DoJ points out in their suit that Google has a monopoly on the advertising marketplace. They have a 90% market share of all ads on the web through DoubleClick’s platform, and 50% of ad buyers through AdExchange. They effectively have control over the multi-sided ad marketplace and much of the web at large.

Other part of the DoJ’s complaints is the anti-competitive behavior. Google managed to woo its biggest competitors, dishing out massive payouts to ensure search dominance.

• They paid Mozilla $500M a year to be the default search on Mozilla
• They paid Apple $1B+ a year to Apple to be default search on Apple devices

What an illusion of choice. The DoJ plans to ban future payments like these and “make things right” by selling off parts of Google’s properties.

Potentially up for grabs is Google’s Chrome Browser - which 90% of internet users are dependent on, either directly through Chrome or one of the many white-labeled forks (Edge, Brave). Also the Android operating system, which has roughly half of the global smartphone market.

Both OpenAI and Yahoo have expressed interest in purchasing Chrome browser. Google submitted a passionate statement on its blog, suggesting that no one would be able to manage the maintenance of these projects and that it would rob consumers of their right to choose a service that they prefer. 🤣

Ironically, Google’s competitor, Firefox agrees - without Google’s $500M stipend - the Mozilla foundation would go under.

Its unclear what’s going to happen with Google, a sale of Chrome or Android would shake the entire technology landscape.

If we’ve learned anything from history is that regulation never has the intended effect. In the 1980s AT&T supplied 90% of phone service in the US, and were quickly expanding vertically into their own manufacturing and technology. An antitrust lawsuit saw them broken up into seven regional telecom companies.

Less than 20 years later all of the regional companies were absorbed into larger companies, with one of the baby bells buying their ex-parent for $16B.

The point is, forcing companies to break up and sell their infrastructure doesn’t work. It just ends up creating an oligopoly, who then all work together to force smaller players out.

The DoJ could easily force Google to have a ‘search engine select’ page when opening Chrome Browser on desktop and Android for the first time - that would be simple, cheap, and leave the choice to the users.

Instead, Google might be forced to share ownership with another giant tech or AI company, which will contribute to the further rot of the internet.

Solutions:

• Instead of using a search engine, use a meta-search engine which can proxy your searches to other providers, protecting your privacy and filtering out the ads from the search results. SearxNG is open-source and you can find public instances here.
• We also host a private instance of SearxNG without logs as part of Above Suite, you receive access to our search service + VPN + video conferencing + encrypted chat + internet phone + email + calendar + file sharing - all for $100/yr.
• Web browsing has an uncertain future with so many dependent on Google Chrome, there are a few choices that avoid big tech surveillance.
  • Ungoogled - Chromium
  • Mullvad Browser
  • FireDragon

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