Google gave no details about their claim there would be national security issues.
The news author speculated that Alphabet will contribute fewer security updates to Chromium.
From my perspective, the core issue is the search and advertising monopoly and the drag on the economy. I’d like small business owners in future generations to be doing something other than selling junk on social media. And, enforcing antitrust law is a step toward that goal.
I’ll add that if Google really cared about national security then they would have started thinking about how to make divestiture a success years ago.
I will shed no tears if they tear Google apart. Speculative money is going to flow into both the search sphere and advertising and a lot of smaller engines and beta engines with some promise will have people knocking on their doors. Get ready Mojeek.
The remedies phase of the Google search trial have finished, and Judge Mehta made it clear that Google selling the Chrome browser was a “little cleaner and a little bit more elegant” than other remedies such as having Google share user search queries and syndicate ads; as reported by MLex.
As it mentions there
The judge asked if it would be a condition that the owner of new Chrome wouldn’t place Google as a default search engine.
“I think short answer is no, Your Honor. We’re not trying to put conditions on the new owner of Chrome,” the DOJ attorney replied.
The judge’s ruling on the proposed remedies are expected this summer.
I skimmed through the judgement. The “Qualified Competitors” may get access to some interesting data that otherwise isn’t available. Presumably DDG is one of them since they’re mentioned 14 times, hopefully Mojeek has an obvious claim should they be interested in the data mentioned. e.g. search terms, click through data and docid related data. There’s a few interesting ways to use the data, like auto suggest for lazy typers.
Very probably not. And we have good reason to know, that even if we did, that we’d have to pay. Others have been lobbying for it; notably companies that are already doing revenue share with them.
Correct, and the Judge has done little. Indeed far, far less than any single person predicted publicly AFAIK. Frankly, it’s … what can I say?..shocking.
“competitor who meets the Plaintiffs’ approved data security standards as recommended by the Technical Committee and agrees to regular data security and privacy audits by the Technical Committee, who makes a sufficient showing to the Plaintiffs, in consultation with the Technical Committee, of a plan to invest and compete in the GSE and/or Search Text Ads markets, and who does not pose a risk to the national security of the United States.”
in any case, we are ruled out:
“any provider of, or potential entrant in the provision of, a General Search Engine (GSE) or of Search Text Ads in the United States, or a GenAI Product in the United States.”
This could have easily happened under Biden. Even Harris was going to fire Lina Khan. I don’t see what input Trump had if it was up to Mehta. Both parties are neoliberal. Most of the economy is a bubble. Most people don’t know what is going on. People with the power to fix things won’t fix things.
