•

US to argue Google abused power to monopolize internet search as antitrust trial begins

Google monopolized internet search for a decade, landmark antitrust trial hears

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/12/google-antitrust-trial-day-1

US makes case Google leveraged power and wealth to strangle competition, spending billions on deals with Apple and Samsung

Google monopolized internet search for a decade, landmark antitrust trial hears

US to argue Google abused power to monopolize internet search as antitrust trial begins::US makes case Google leveraged power and wealth to strangle competition, spending billions on deals with Apple and Samsung

27 comments

CheeseNoodle

•

Really the search engine is what they're going after google for? not the whole web integrity thing thats pretty much a coup that would make google the ultimate gatekeepers of all browsers, browser addons and privacy in general?

zerofk

•

Give them some time, they probably only recently heard about this newfangled search engine called Google.

jantin

•

If I was to guess I'd say it's the only way they can do anything meaningful. If the goal is to curb google's monopoly on the internet it would be neat to break it down and apparently search was a case that can be credibly pursued on antitrust grounds. Web integroty hasn't yet reached its intended scope, even if everyone with minimal knowledge know where it's going, "everyone sees the writing on the wall" is not a valid ground for legal persecution.

noride

•

CaptObvious

•

I’ve wondered if this and similar cases accounts for the dramatic decline in quality of Google search. It’s all but useless these days. I’d honestly rather have AltaVista back.

qooqie

•

The amount of ad links I have to scroll through to get to my actual search is just awful these days. Almost feels like the entire first page is ads and then the second page is just sketchy fucking backwoods sites that may or may not bukkake your computer with viruses

CaptObvious

•

Oh yeah. Not to mention that it's no longer possible to do literal searches, to exclude certain words from a search, to require certain words in a search.... Useless.

I know Dogpile is still around. It was my go-to back in the day. I may have to check it out.

alienanimals

•

ISPs have had an oligopoly longer than Google has been around. Funny how the government never starts antitrust proceedings against them...

chakan2

•

Google also claims its industry dominance – the government alleges it has about a 90% share of the US search market – is the result of providing a better product than its competitors.

That's the crux of it. Over the last two decades Google HAS had a better product. But it pushes all it's own services through it...

This will be an interesting case.

Nahvi

•

More like Google had the better product a decade ago. It has pretty well been crap that was just being defaulted to for most of the last decade. Which is exactly why it is ripe for an antitrust claim.

Zetta

•

Google is garbage now. Everything I search is basically useless highly SEO optimized websites that provide nothing close to the info I'm requesting.

Kalkaline

•

theedqueen

•

So what’s the best search engine these days? Duck Duck Go?

DoctorTYVM

•

DDG is my go-to, it's normally good enough. Google used to be better at showing searches so I'd still go check out then if I couldn't find something.

But since their ad strategy changed to favour paid suppliers and their servers are getting switched to handle heavier computing, Google is starting to suck now. So honestly its probable that you'll need to work harder to find what you're looking for regardless of which engine you use.

Soundhole

•

bilb

•

I've been pretty satisfied with Kagi. Not free though.

MDZA

•

Really love Kagi. Given how good the search results have been for me, I’m happy to continue paying.

cmbabul

•

That’s what I use on personal machines most of the time, but I still have to use Google occasionally and it is usually easier when I have questions about what I’m trying to look up

nodsocket

•

I wonder if we'll see M$ sued for pushing Bing/Edge.

ilickfrogs

•

Personally, I have bigger issues with this.

Nahvi

•

You have a bigger problem with the slowly dying Microsoft pushing Bing on Windows than the market leading Alphabet pushing Google on Android?

Even if you want to look at browsers, the Chromebooks are even more integrated with Chrome than Edge on Windows.

They should be the same problem, but if one was worse based on the impact, then it should almost certainly be Google/Chrome.

raptir

•

The problem is that Google is the market leader. Android has 42% of the web market to Windows' 28%.

autotldr

•

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Big tech companies and regulators are closely watching the trial, which could force a shift in how the industry is allowed to operate.

Its outcome could reshape how the public accesses and interacts with the internet, or embolden Google to pursue an even tighter grip on the market.

The trial is set to last 10 weeks, as the government makes its case that Google leveraged its market power and wealth to strangle competition.

The company’s longtime chief legal officer, Kent Walker, has argued that consumers can still freely use any rival search engines and that Google’s services represent only a fraction of the ways that people browse the internet.

Google also claims its industry dominance – the government alleges it has about a 90% share of the US search market – is the result of providing a better product than its competitors.

It is unclear what punitive measures Google would face if found guilty of violating antitrust law.

The original article contains 337 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

kandoh

•

Should've happened 20 years ago

chemicalwonka

•

This is what happens when a company gains so much power, inevitably they will smash as much rules they can for profit. Profit is the only god . There is no moral or ethics under Capitalism. Nothing new under the sun

Substance_P

•

Out of a handful of A.I search tools based on chat GPT the difference between those and Googles results are like night and day. Who wants to spend time on Googles run around searches while freely giving over data and privacy these days.

madthumbs

•

As much as I hate Go ogle, it is up to us to choose. -Sad part is all but Yandex is burying the same information as Go ogle it seems.

airportline

•

Why would any non-Russian use Yandex?

madthumbs

•

Carnac the Magnificent!

Savas

•

Let me guess, Google didn't follow on one of the US's demands, now they're being targetted.