Next up in my backlog of news to cover: the US Department of Justice’s proposed remedies for Google’s monopolistic abuse.
Now that Judge Amit Mehta has found Google is a monopolist, lawyers for the Department of Justice have begun proposing solutions to correct the company’s illegal behavior and restore competition to the market for search engines. In a new 32-page filing (included below), they said they are considering both “behavioral and structural remedies.“
That covers everything from applying a consent decree to keep an eye on the company’s behavior to forcing it to sell off parts of its business, such as Chrome, Android, or Google Play.
↫ Richard Lawler at The Verge
While I think it would be a great idea to break Google up, such an action taken in a vacuum seems to be rather pointless. Say Google is forced to spin off Android into a separate company – how is that relatively small Android, Inc. going to compete with the behemoth that is Apple and its iOS to which such restrictions do not apply? How is Chrome Ltd. going to survive Microsoft’s continued attempts at forcing Edge down our collective throats? Being a dedicated browser maker is working out great for Firefox, right?
This is the problem with piecemeal, retroactive measures to try and “correct” a market position that you have known for years is being abused – sure, this would knock Google down a peg, but other, even larger megacorporations like Apple or Microsoft will be the ones to benefit most, not any possible new companies or startups. This is exactly why a market-wide, equally-applied set of rules and regulations, like the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, is a far better and more sustainable approach.
Unless similar remedies are applied to Google’s massive competitors, these Google-specific remedies will most likely only make things worse, not better, for the American consumer.
When at&t was broken up, it was an easy action to take. Multiple regional phone companies were created to replace the monolith giant. People benefited from the new competition with new long distance carriers lowering the cost of calling outside your state. What a long time ago that was. Goggle today likely won’t be so logically broken up. How does one break up a worldwide company? Doing it by division will be pointless. Only the advertising segments need to be addressed and split up in a way that prevents them from reagglomerating in the near future. Any ideas?
They couldn’t break up Microsoft, so who thinks they can break up Google?
Pathetic.
they should take another stab at it, the waters are less muddy now, at least split it like this…
-cloud/browser to pluck it from the core, how many times Microsoft cried “but the browser is a core part of the os” stop making it that way?
-software office/windows/server.
-gaming/xbox
-rest of the hardware
seem like it would be a decent start
I’d split it entirely differently:
– Azure – it’s own thing. There may be components to split up within Azure. This is current profit center for MS – everything else is a cost center. Tough breaks.
– Non-infrastructure platforms like Bing, maybe their stupid AI thing. App store fronts on all platforms can maybe go here.
– Platform software – Windows – spin it out. They get cloud rent from this, but aren’t incentivized to actually work on it, because it’s mature. Software side of gaming platform/XBox can stay here.
– Client Software, Browsers, Office, etc. The cloud versions of this can stay with the product teams.
– All Hardware products, including XBox’s hardware division and surface division.
Most importantly, app stores on Windows and XBox would get separated from underlying operating platforms. This goes across the industry (and has to be coordinated). The vertical integration between computing platforms and store fronts (with all their lock-in, rent producing power) is a real problem. It’s anti-capitalist even, and however you feel about capitalism, this is worse.
BTW, you might ask whether it’s enough to just allow other store fronts on your platform, like you can on Windows, or Steam Deck. I’m not so sure. The primacy of the first-party store front is a real advantage, and there are forms of lock-in that can result from that (though not as locked as Phil Spencer thinks…). I think Valve and Windows are in a better position than Nintendo, Playstation, Apple, or Android, but I’m not convinced its enough.
> how is that relatively small Android, Inc
Because, of course, no software company has ever become big by charging manufacturers for the os.
I don’t see how a paid Android OS will make any dent. Practically all larger phone manufacturers can fork the last AOSP and build from there and not be beholden to the new “Android Inc.”. Or switch to a home grown platform altogether. People in the street don’t buy an Android phone, they buy a Samsung Galaxy, a “Nokia”, a One Plus, etc.
It would only work if the Google services also move to “Android Inc.” and then we have a new defacto monopoly from the get go. The value in Android isn’t so much the OS, as it is in the Google services Like Play, Wallet, Maps, Photos, etc. Bar that, Android becomes just another OS that has to fight against others.
Whatever is left of Alphabet, the part that manages the services will most probably want to port them to as many platforms as possible. If Android the phone OS is separate from this, they will just be one of many. Or soon gone and replaced by whatever the different phone manufacturers cook up for themselves.
Name 1 other than Microsoft.
Easiest way is to rip-out infrastructure (indexer, gmail & cloud) and make it sell spied info to all interested third-parties. Ads would stay with front-end services.
This feels like a case of be careful what you wish for.
Say gmail gets spun off. New Gmail needs a revenue stream. So your once free email now costs £10 per month. What choice do you have? Move your decade old email and all the associated single sign-on and logins that use it…? It will be very annoying, but doable.
With android this same £10 per month is less avoidable. As the only alternative is to pay a kings ransom for an Apple iPhone. It would be similar to when we had to pay for blackberry email.
And let’s not forget you don’t Own any of these software services. So you’d have no recourse if this applied, even if it’s retrospective.
Break up Apple as well! Why should Apple get to bundle Safari (Firefox on iOS has to use the same Safari rendering under the hood), Apple Music, Apple News, Apple Maps, etc. when Microsoft couldn’t bundle IE into the OS? We have allowed way too many monopolies to linger for too long. The FTC sat on their hands for 30 years because some economists said that “monopolies are good for consumers” when they are demonstrably not. As a result, they have become commonplace, allowing the enshittification cycle in the first place.
Take Chrome away from them. Make Chromium become a nonprofit and no google members on the board. Make them support operating systems that google hasn’t blessed.
Take gmail away too. Make that it’s own entity.
These two actions take away their duopoly on email and near monopoly on browsers. They wouldn’t control the web anymore.
Good! I know this will alter the landscape in ways that might not be great at first, and I think it’s worth that risk. Effective trust busting has to start somewhere, and IMO it will be useful to set a precedent for it being done at all. I’d say the same if the target were Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, or any other such bloated company.
I’d be very fine paying 100-200 EUR for a new mobile OS every few years, knowing that the developer would have all the incentives to support the broadest possible base instead of forced obsolescence.
I’d also be very fine paying 10-15 EUR per month for my email (which I self-host nowadays), knowing that the provider is forbidden by law to profit on my data.
I’d also be very fine paying 300-400 EUR every 4-5 years for a new version of Windows/Mac/whateverOS, knowing that the manufacturer must make a profit on the OS itself, and is forbidden of selling my data and must preserve my privacy.
I still remember buying, I think it was Flight Simulator 2000 or 2002…
Supported on Windows 95, 98, Me, NT, 2000 and XP.
Or, gah, my 3 years old postscript printer works with my HP 712 running nextstep 3.3!!!! Including color and duplex printing!
How about that?
If we would stop getting everything “for free”, we would be surely forcing manufacturers to keep supporting their products for longer and giving mother Earth a bit of love as we go with it.
(typing on a January 1987 model M keyboard)
They didn’t break up Microsoft, a far more dangerous monopoly in the world today. In fact, they did very very little. So, it runs fully amok today expanding in new and better ways of ensuring their monopoly can never be displaced.
Just saying.
Yes!
The thing that should be spun out the most, is obviously Youtube. Right now, they’re allowed to make bonkers business decisions such as leaving money on the table by not giving monetization to all channels (unless they break the TOS) and taking % of any supers, etc. because “uncle Alphabet” will bail them out if needed. If youtube were to be on their own, suddenly they’d HAVE to care about the creators they’ve mooched off of for decades.
I do wonder if/how Youtube being spun off would affect the extremism pipeline there. Right now their algo tries to direct people very quickly towards bizarro content because that shit drives engagement and therefore money. I can see that becoming an even worse problem if Youtube suddenly isn’t attached to Google, unless new regulations are applied and enforced.
rainbowsocks,
I saw that for sure during the 2020 US election cycle. Youtube was actively promoting tons of extremist sources right on the home page, Their algorithms were very likely maximizing engagement and profits regardless of what it was. Though I can’t say for sure without data, but it hasn’t seemed nearly as bad these past couple of years. I think somebody at youtube must have become alarmed at how extreme the youtube platform had become and as a result pushed for more shadow bans.
https://metricool.com/youtube-shadowban/
While I strongly prefer youtube not promote extremist content, I do think we need to be careful here and take issue with youtube’s use of secret shadowbans. Youtube don’t have an obligation to promote harmful channels, but channel impacted by alleged violations ought to be entitled to see the penalties being applied to their accounts. They are entitled to that, otherwise it becomes like a secret court with no accountability, which is very unethical. It is very troubling for any monopoly to do this.
I can agree there may be unintended consequences. Ultimately though I’m a proponent of more competition and flexibility in choice than to be stuck within a monoculture.
Agreed on that last. The trust busting has to happen, the new problems it creates can be dealt with as they come.
And yeah, policing platforms well is always a tough line to walk. In the case of Google though it was clear at least for a while that they were not even making the attempt, and in fact were doing the opposite in order to fatten their wallets. I hope you’re right that they’re doing more now, and perhaps it does say something that most of the bullshit has pivoted to e.g. Tiktok, but we’re clearly not out of the woods yet.
In a way BTW I think the rise of huge centralized platforms is part of the problem. I grew up on web forums, and most of those were not havens for extremist propaganda. They were small and managed on a hobby basis by usually quite aggressive mod teams. Inveterate trolls, racists, etc. would get banned quickly, and if they were not, people would start leaving for other forums. You still see something like this on Mastodon, though I think Mastodon is very flawed in its own ways and a poor replacement for forum software. But with giant centralized platforms like Youtube, Facebook, etc. moderation is more difficult, and companies are financially incentivized to avoid moderating if they can get away with it. You have huge numbers of private groups, people in poor countries recruited to moderate (and get traumatized) for long hours and very low pay. You have cases where e.g. a huge amount of activity on Facebook is linked to a genocide, and Facebook is happy to enable the people planning murders and spreading propaganda because that activity means more money for them. These things are obviously choices, evil and greedy choices that don’t NEED to be made, but also the incentives would not exist if the platforms weren’t so massive and the income so heavily ad/surveillance based.
Unless and UNTIL they are ready to break up Microsoft too, it will never happen. If ANY company should be broken up it is Microsoft and into about five parts. But it will never happen, just like a break up of Google will never happen because too many people own stock in those companies and the world’s economy would take a severe hit.
Note that I do NOT own stock in Google or Microsoft.
Sabon,
You’re an apple guy, the more pertinent question is whether you own stock in apple?
All of the tech giants are guilty and have gotten away with anti-competitive behaviors for way too long.
I am not sure that breaking Android out into its own thing makes a lot of sense. It would be better to instead ensure that Google cannot block or impair competing app stores and “services”.
The browser though seems quite different. It seems very viable to take the browser away from them and quite valuable as well. It is the area were we are seeing the most most consumer harm from the conflict of interest of being the ad seller and steward of the platform where the ads will run. Consumer tracking by the browser raises significant concerns in particular.
Also, while Chrome could survive on its own, it is not that important that it does. The other major players are on Open Source engines at this point. Microsoft is basically using Google’s browser in a different suit. Firefox was a purely Open Source alternative and did quite well on its own before Google killed it with Chromium. An independent Chromium competing more honestly with Firefox ( and some up-and-comers ) feels like a good thing.
Why does Google need to be in the browser “business”? I mean, it is not even a business clearly. They fund it entirely to abuse their influence in service of their actual businesses. This seems like exactly the kind of thing that needs to be divested if you want to have a fair marketplace.