In the US, a court has ruled that Google violated anti-trust laws. So, the question is, what’s next at this point?
It’s not exactly a revelation to say that Google basically operates a monopoly. If you’ve tried searching the web, a vast majority end up using Google. Whether that is directly through the search engine or through third party tools such as Mozilla’s FireFox. Even some search engine out there billing themselves as an alternative to Google still utilize Google’s infrastructure to search the web at large. In fact, trying to avoid anything Google isn’t necessarily the easiest thing in the world.
This, of course, raises a very reasonable question: is Google basically a monopoly? Well, according to a recent court ruling, they are. From the Associated Press:
A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation, a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies.
The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.
After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling. He said Google’s dominance in the search market is evidence of its monopoly.
There is, indeed, some nuance to consider in all of this. There are cases where users are presented with a choice of search engines, but a vast majority of users end up defaulting to Google anyway. So, part of the problem is that Google search, at least in the eyes of most consumers, is superior to all other products on the market today. Yes, there are arguments to be made that Google’s search products have deteriorated in quality over the years (such as the threat of Google Overview to name one example), but consumers generally use Google by choice in the end.
While the search products are a bit more murky than they seem, where things get a bit more clear is the advertising market. This is something that the report brings up:
The case depicted Google as a technological bully that methodically has thwarted competition to protect a search engine that has become the centerpiece of a digital advertising machine that generated nearly $240 billion in revenue last year. Justice Department lawyers argued that Google’s monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices while also enjoying the luxury of not having to invest more time and money into improving the quality of its search engine — a lax approach that hurt consumers.
Indeed, if you are a smaller web operation only pulling in thousands of clicks per month, trying to find a way to rid yourself of anything Google is pretty much impossible. That’s why I was a very interested observer when TechDirt announced that they would be pulling everything Google from their site and searching for a new ad network to replace Adsense. After all, Adsense only pays pennies these days, so an alternative was, indeed, something I would have loved to have seen. To my disappointment, Techdirt would later explain that an alternative simply doesn’t exist and, instead, chose to just do without an ad network altogether. Good on them for being able to do without Google entirely, but not an option that is available to smaller operations like Freezenet.
Indeed, we do have Patreon and Ko-Fi, but as of now, the revenue’s pulled in so far aren’t even close to paying for server costs. I fully know why this is, of course. Consumers are stretched impossibly thin. While I’m sure there are plenty out there who would be happy to support a smaller operation like Freezenet, actually having the cash to do so is probably not a thing. There’s an affordability crisis for consumers and far too many are living paycheck to paycheck. So, it’s not as though people generally have the spare cash to support the little guy these days.
Sponsors generally go for larger operations that pulls in at least tens of thousands of clicks per month, not merely thousands per month that Freezenet pulls in. Without money in the first place, advertising is out of the question and the general media hates the internet, so anyone trying to make a go at being a business online is subject to having all messages go straight to the trash (believe me, I know from personal experience as well as others experiences as well).
That’s why I have launched a rather devious plan to circumvent all of these financial barriers in the first place. I knew this would happen and have been working behind the scenes to get that financial independence, though it is a plan that takes… quite a lot of time. While I’ve more or less detailed this on Patreon, all I will say is that while there have been some setbacks recently, I’m starting to get pretty darned close to succeeding with this plan these days.
In the interim, ditching Google Adsense isn’t really an option for Freezenet. Numerous ad networks billing themselves as Adsense alternatives also use the Adsense network. What’s more, it’s not an option for numerous other smaller operations out there as well. If you need ad revenue as a small operation, your choices are basically Google’s Adsense or nothing. If that’s not monopolistic control over the online ad market, I’m not sure what is.
Still, in looking at this ruling, the question in my head is, “OK, now what?” Obviously, a judge can’t rule that a viable alternative must exist tomorrow and, magically, make that viable alternative exist at the same time. Judges may make landmark decisions, but they can’t necessarily perform miracles.
What’s more, the most obvious aspect of this ruling is that Google is going to appeal this. That promises to drag this case out for many more years.
Mike Masnick of Techdirt seems to be of a similar opinion in all of this as well. From TechDirt:
What if you found an antitrust violation… and almost all of the remedies wouldn’t actually do much to fix things? That might be the situation we’re in with Google’s antitrust loss this week. It’s not a good situation by any means, but it’s not clear what to do about it either. The DOJ’s historic antitrust win against Google raises a troubling question: what if the cure is almost as bad as the disease?
From the beginning, I thought this was a particularly weak antitrust case (apparently I was wrong!). I also thought that one of the other antitrust cases the company is facing (about advertising tech) was a hell of a lot stronger. So I’m a bit surprised by the conclusion here, but still left perplexed by what actual benefit this outcome has (should it stand).
And, of course, none of it really matters at all right now, because Google will appeal, and the case will go on for another five or so years before anything is decided. And, at that point, it’s possible that we’ll be living in an entirely different world, perhaps one where AI-driven search engines make Google’s position less dominant anyway.
So all of this leaves everyone in an uncomfortable and not very helpful position. Yes, it would be nice if there were other competitors in the market. But what about this ruling will actually make that happen? At best, this seems to give Google an excuse to pay less to Apple and Mozilla, which helps Google out and harms Mozilla, one of the few companies that is actually competing in the browser space.
That doesn’t seem like a good or healthy result.
Some are arguing that this calls for a “breakup” of Google, but it’s also difficult to see. What in breaking up Google enables more successful search engines to hit the market? Again, that kind of remedy seems more reasonable (and more likely to have an impact) in the other case about adtech.
And, again, by the time this case is actually over, years down the road, the entire market may have already shifted. This leaves things in an uncomfortable position. Yes, Google is dominant in the market. And, no, that’s not great. But how do you get someone else to build a really good search engine out of this remains unclear.
So, in the end, I still find this case frustrating. What do you do when the status quo seems way less than ideal, but the remedies presented don’t seem likely to help, and could actually do damage to a competitive player like Mozilla?
At any rate, this is going to take years to even remotely get sorted out. The only angle I see here that this is positive is that it might lend credibility to other anti-trust cases against Google. That’s… pretty much it as far as I can see. Still, yeah, go ahead and say this is a historic ruling. In terms of significance and meaning, well, that remains to be seen.
