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[winjer]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-rules-google-broke-antitrust-law-search-case-2024-08-05/

A U.S. judge ruled on Monday that Google violated antitrust law, spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world's default search engine, the first big win for federal authorities taking on Big Tech's market dominance.
The ruling paves the way for a second trial to determine potential fixes, possibly including a breakup of Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, which would change the landscape of the online advertising world that Google has dominated for years.

It is also a green light to aggressive U.S. antitrust enforcers prosecuting Big Tech, a sector that has been under fire from across the political spectrum.
"The court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, Washington, D.C., wrote. Google controls about 90% of the online search market and 95% on smartphones.

Alphabet said it plans to appeal Mehta's ruling. "This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available," Google said in a statement.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the ruling "a historic win for the American people,” adding that "no company - no matter how large or influential - is above the law."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the "pro-competition ruling is a victory for the American people," adding that "Americans deserve an internet that is free, fair, and open for competition."

Mehta noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure that its search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.
"The default is extremely valuable real estate," Mehta wrote. "Even if a new entrant were positioned from a quality standpoint to bid for the default when an agreement expires, such a firm could compete only if it were prepared to pay partners upwards of billions of dollars in revenue share and make them whole for any revenue shortfalls resulting from the change."
He added, “Google, of course, recognizes that losing defaults would dramatically impact its bottom line. For instance, Google has projected that losing the Safari default would result in a significant drop in queries and billions of dollars in lost revenues.”

It's nice to see Google being taken down a peg or two.

 

[kikkis]

This is death sentence for firefox

 

[SlimySnake]

Mehta noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to ensure that its search engine is the default on smartphones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.

this is fucking insane. how much money are they making every year?

crazy that they laid off 12,000 employees and yet have tens of billions to spend on what is essentially bribes.

 

[winjer]

this is fucking insane. how much money are they making every year?

crazy that they laid off 12,000 employees and yet have tens of billions to spend on what is essentially bribes.

Enough, that's it's worth it for them to pay so much.
Our data, our searches is worth so much money, it's unbelievable.

 

[calistan]

I always switch the default search engine away from Google in my browsers, but I learned recently that there aren't actually any independent ones beyond the very small scale niche search engines.

For example, DuckDuckGo, which is the one I like, gets most of its results from Bing.

 

[winjer]

I always switch the default search engine away from Google in my browsers, but I learned recently that there aren't actually any independent ones beyond the very small scale niche search engines.

For example, DuckDuckGo, which is the one I like, gets most of its results from Bing.

I have been using Brave Search.
As far as I know, they are independent.
And the performance and search results are good.

 

[calistan]

I have been using Brave Search.
As far as I know, they are independent.
And the performance and search results are good.

Brave, like most of the others, gets results from the big three - Google, Bing, Yandex - to bolster its own data. That's why it seems to be good.

If you want one that doesn't defer to GBY then you're looking at a relatively small dataset.

A look at search engines with their own indexes

A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

seirdy.one

 

[AJUMP23]

They changed their motto from "Don't be Evil" to "we are Evil" a long time ago.

 

[winjer]

Brave, like most of the others, gets results from the big three - Google, Bing, Yandex - to bolster its own data. That's why it seems to be good.

If you want one that doesn't defer to GBY then you're looking at a relatively small dataset.

A look at search engines with their own indexes

A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

seirdy.one

From what is said in there, the contract with Bing ended a year ago.
And it doesn't use results from Google, only that Brave compares results with Google.
But they create their own index and databases.

 

[calistan]

From what is said in there, the contract with Bing ended a year ago.
And it doesn't use results from Google, only that Brave compares results with Google.
But they create their own index and databases.

That's good to know, I might give it a try.

 

[winjer]

That's good to know, I might give it a try.

They now also have an AI doing searches, called Leo.
But it can be disabled in the options, if you don't like it.

 

[dave_d]

It's nice to see Google being taken down a peg or two.

Slight correction, it isn't Google. It's "Evil Google". (Hey remember when Google used to say don't be evil? That was funny that anybody believed that.)

 

[Fake]

And some folks here defending Google for putting intense AD on Youtube lmao.

 

[jakinov]

this is fucking insane. how much money are they making every year?

crazy that they laid off 12,000 employees and yet have tens of billions to spend on what is essentially bribes.

They aren't bribes. They just don't like when google does it because they have so much market share already. In gaming context it'd be like if PlayStation had even more market share and the government got mad that they kept paying for exclusivity deals to strengthen their position. If Bing or and other search engine did the same thing today, the government would not care. It's like how Apple has been doing stuff on iOS that Microsoft basically got in trouble for doing with Windows in their anti trust case in 2001.

In regards to layoffs and the amount of money, many of the searches that happen because of the deal result in people seeing ads. It pays for itself (and more). Paying for 12,000 employees salary and benefits to do work you don't want done anymore only costs them money.

 

[TwiztidElf]

I use Yandex, Qwant and Brave.
If I wanted to be spoonfed curated crap that wasn't what I asked for, I wouldn't bother in the first place.

 

[SkylineRKR]

this is fucking insane. how much money are they making every year?

crazy that they laid off 12,000 employees and yet have tens of billions to spend on what is essentially bribes.

Firing 12k employees likely doesn't even save them a billion a year. Its nothing compared to the 26 billion they spend in just one year for keeping their search engine the default. Its quite puzzling if you really think about it.

 

[ForAcademicPurposes]

Google is losing to Chat GPT in a big way.

It is mind blowing that they are spending billions to keep their search engine in the game. A fucking search engine in 2024.

 

[Laptop1991]

Well it is really, i switched to Brave last year because of all the ad tracking and dodgy stuff they were pulling, and i've enjoyed better browsing in the last year, although some sites like The Daily Mirror are all of a sudden forcing you to accept cookies or make you pay to view their site, advertisers have too much power on the net because Money!!.

 

[Fabieter]

Google is alot smaller like Microsoft. That's some pretty big hypocrisy right there.

 

[Doczu]

Google is losing to Chat GPT in a big way.

It is mind blowing that they are spending billions to keep their search engine in the game. A fucking search engine in 2024.

Think how much the ad revenue must be from being the top dog of search engines. How much data they can siphon from users for further use.
They wouldn't do it if there was no monetary incentive

 

[winjer]

And so it starts...

The DoJ's antitrust lawsuit against Google for its digital ad monopoly goes on trial today

Opening statements before District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia start later today. The BBC notes that the Justice...

www.techspot.com

In a landmark antitrust trial set to start later today, the US government is targeting Google's highly profitable advertisement tech business. The lawsuit, filed in 2023, comes after a combined investigation by the US government and more than a dozen states. The case focuses on a $31 billion component of Google's ad business responsible for placing banner ads on millions of websites.

Opening statements before District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia start later today. The BBC notes that the Justice Department plans to argue that Google's parent company, Alphabet, illegally operates a monopoly in the online advertising market. However, Alphabet denies the allegations, claiming that its success is due to the "effectiveness" of its services.

The Justice Department claims Google established its monopoly through the anti-competitive acquisitions of smaller ad-tech rivals and even bullying website publishers into using its ad products. Google is also said to have unethically controlled key businesses in each part of the advertising supply chain, thereby driving up ad rates for advertisers while reducing the payouts to website owners.

Pointing out Google's systematic abuse of the online ad business, the DoJ will ask the court to break up the company's ad-tech monopoly. The agency believes a breakup would create new opportunities for Google's smaller competitors and incentivize new players to enter the market. It will also be better for both advertisers and publishers.

 

[Days like these...]

I use Yandex, Qwant and Brave.
If I wanted to be spoonfed curated crap that wasn't what I asked for, I wouldn't bother in the first place.

I'll have to try these

 

[Cyberpunkd]

this is fucking insane. how much money are they making every year?

Considering they are a monopoly - a lot. So you make money, spend it to guard your monopoly, which in turn allows you to make even more money.

I'm sure someone here will point out how this is all good and Google is just much better than other companies doing the same.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Google is losing to Chat GPT in a big way.

It is mind blowing that they are spending billions to keep their search engine in the game. A fucking search engine in 2024.

Think how much the ad revenue must be from being the top dog of search engines. How much data they can siphon from users for further use.
They wouldn't do it if there was no monetary incentive

Their online advertising branch is a cash cow, it allows them to have insane coffers while they spend that to A. Hold on to their monopoly B. Figure out what can they branch out into.

 

[calistan]

I'll have to try these

You might want to think twice about Yandex (although you'll never know if a smaller search engine is getting its results from there). It's one of the established big three, and part of the largest Russian tech group.

From its wikipedia page:

- In July 2024, the $5.4 billion sale was completed, giving the Kremlin more control over the business.

- The Kremlin planned in 2024 to use NTechLab's software for a secret center that will collect and analyze CCTV footage from across Russia. The aim of the project is to 'identify threats in a timely manner' and 'monitor individuals for destructive and/or disloyal behavior'.

- Many of the articles displayed in Yandex's news aggregators were also from Russian state-owned and state-sponsored sources

 

[jason10mm]

Seems to me that we are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY over due for breaking up these megacorps that have total control of the entire pipeline of products for consumers. You shouldn't be able to dominate the device, the software, AND the content and exclude others. These companies need to be fractured so none become "too big to fail" and innovation is stifled for the sake of planned obsolescence, iterative annual generations, and walled gardens. Companies should not control TRILLIONS.

 

[Laptop1991]

Hope it succeeds, i haven't trusted Google for a long time now

 

[JohnnyPhats]

When your company name is literally used as a verb...you probably have too much power.

 

[winjer]