How Might The Google Monopoly Verdict Affect You Personally?

By Author: Tahir Lateef
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The internet industry is closely watching Google's actions after a judge said in August that the company had unlawfully monopolized online search. A potentially cataclysmic decision for the web search industry and landscape, it might have equally seismic repercussions for Google.
In order to lessen its dominance in the search industry, the US government requested the judge in November to consider ordering Google to split up, possibly by selling its Chrome browser.

However, it took four years to get this point, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has plans to appeal, so this legal procedure will probably take some more time. Here are some potential implications of the verdict and Google's purported "remedies" for the time being.

Disbanding the band

Perhaps the most drastic action suggested in response to August's verdict is the division of Google's operations into smaller parts.

However, while US District Judge Amit Mehta considers what steps (or "remedies") to take to reduce Google's monopoly, the DOJ has requested him to think about doing so. On Wednesday 20 November, ...
... a filing to the court said that the world's most popular tech giant should be made to sell its Chrome browser, the effective highway for accessing its search engine.

But Google is, of course, much more than a search company.

Take Android, for instance - the firm Google purchased for $50m (£39.3m) in 2005, which now runs on the majority of smartphones. Or consider YouTube, a $1.65bn purchase in 2006, which today brings in many multiples of that sum every year.
The DOJ suggested Google should have to divest Android, not just Chrome, as a "straightforward" way of stopping it promoting its search engine over rivals' - though it also offered behavioral remedies as an alternative.

Google said it fears that having to sell Chrome and Android, potentially at a discount, may compromise their security and privacy.

Google it

Another potential remedy centers on Google's practice of paying other companies to use it. The US said Google was currently paying firms like Apple huge amounts of money each year to be preinstalled as the default search engine on their devices or platforms.

He agreed.

The argument is, if Google hadn't blown that money, perhaps the big firms might have got some incentive from somewhere to build their own search experience.

Instead, Apple's Safari browser, for example uses Google by default every time you use it to search the web. If such remedy significantly impacted its capacity to pay other companies to use it, perhaps those firms might start a rival.

Here though they would run up against Google's incredibly strong customer recognition for search. Despite its own high brand profile, it is hard to imagine telling someone to "Apple" something. The iPhone-maker will of course be keen to keep the money from Google rolling in, which, said one analyst in 2022, came in at $20 billion. Any disruption of the revenue stream is a big deal for Apple," according to Dipanjan Chatterjee of Forrester Research.

As the case works its way through the system, and the likely outcome seems to be opening up search engine exclusivity, you can count on a brand as obsessed as Apple is about customer experience to have a Plan B to ensure a smooth transition for its customers.

Hard to shift

Something perhaps easier to envision is some sort of choice screen-where people opening a browser for the first time are prompted whether they want to use Google or an alternative like Microsoft's Bing. The DOJ has recommended that the court consider establishing choice screens for users who haven't already selected a default search engine users in their proposed remedies.

It's a bit trickier to imagine that actually being enough to make people abandon Google in their droves, though, simply because for the most part it just works well. Us older folks will remember that Google was one of many search engines that sprang to life at dawn of internet, other familiar competitors included Yahoo and Ask (formerly known as AskJeeves), while less familiar competitors in the game at the time included Lycos and AltaVista.

But over the last ten years, Google did not just become the market leader, it became part of the way we speak. Even when Microsoft created its own rival, Bing, in 2009, nothing has yet usurped Google's position. Microsoft chief Satya Nadella testified in Google's case, possibly hoping a ruling like this could finally give Bing some wings.

The court may try to come up with other ways of intervening in the position that Google has as a default search engine, but some of those remedies probably go beyond the facts driving this case," said Professor Anu Bradford of Columbia Law School.

For example, the EU is further going in terms of the latest Digital Markets Act, which compels even Google's own Android phones to present users with a 'choice screen' that lets the user choose one's preferred search engine when setting up the phone. One question is whether this new ruling paves way for such regulatory demands in the future."

It takes time

No matter what happens next, history says it won't occur overnight. Going back to 1999, Microsoft could hardly have been in a more similar position to where Google finds itself today.

The company had just been ruled by a US judge to have created a monopoly and, within one year, a court had ordered that the company be split.
The break-up was a decision the firm appealed and, in 2001, the original ruling was overturned. By the end of 2002 Microsoft had agreed a settlement with the US Department of Justice, which a judge accepted.

But some US states disagreed, and it wasn't until 2004 - five years after the original ruling - that the settlement was officially signed off.

I Tahir has a passion in writing and reading. Usually when an idea flows in my mind, I start writing upon that. If I find it fit to be read by others I upload it. I am not writing specifically on any particular subject or topic whenever my mind compels me, I write and, in the meantime, if someone asks me to write on any specific topic I also write accordingly. You can read more at https://maliktahirlateef.blogspot.com