On Monday, US judge, Amit Mehta, ruled Google has a monopoly in the search marketplace. Smart money commentators noticed Judge Mehta referenced Microsoft which is the most famous antitrust case in history. The Microsoft case became must see TV with PC manufacturing CEOs coming out to testify on behalf of Microsoft.
The US government sued Google in 2020 citing the company abused its size and power to dissuade competition in search which ultimately harmed consumers. The court found Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act which outlaws monopolies.
The judge used similar language used against Microsoft in its antitrust trial.
Just as the agreements in that case help[ed] keep usage of Navigator below the critical level necessary for Navigator or any other rival to pose a real threat to Microsoft’s monopoly, Google’s distribution agreements have constrained the query volumes of its rivals, thereby inoculating Google against any genuine competitive threat.
- Judge Amit Mehta
The Power of Default
Judge Mehta said the “power of default” led to Google being ruled as a monopoly. Google search is the default search engine for all Apple devices, Samsung devices, and other devices through payouts amounting to billions of dollars to these companies.
Users are free to navigate to Google’s rivals through non-default search access points, but they rarely do.
- Judge Amit Mehta
A separate trial will be held on September 4th to discuss remedies to bring the company back in compliance.
Google Search Has Been Getting Worse
This may be a good move for Google. Its search results have been getting gradually worse as they’ve gotten ever larger and more dependent on advertising dollars to boost revenue. Results are frequently packed upfront with advertisements and sponsored links before getting to what you’re looking for.
A preponderance of crappy AI-generated content has obfuscated accuracy and reduced precision in finding what you’re looking for. And a problem I’ve spoken about forever, discovery, has gotten worse than what it was just a year ago.
Google has made it harder to find new information when you’re looking for something unknown, and many times generating results that run far afield when you know something exists, you just don’t know where.
Google is arguing agents like ChatGPT are new competitors on the scene. However, OpenAI acknowledges ChatGPT isn’t trained on anything new. ChatGPT is typically trained on information that’s 1 or 2 years out of date. Furthermore, if Google is complaining that ChatGPT is a competitor in returning misinformation or hallucinatory results, then it may have a point. Otherwise, ChatGPT isn’t good at crawling the web for factual information. It often gets things wrong.
My immediate remedy would be to eliminate the incentive device manufacturers have for bundling Google search in their products. Maybe that would incentivize improved products that will actually help you find what you’re looking for.