Artificial intelligence saves tech giant Google from divest order… for now • FRANCE 24 English

Well, it’s been a week for the history books for Google. The tech giant dodged a US breakup order, but has been slapped with a record antitrust fine by the European Union. Here to break it all down for us in our technology segment then is Charlotte Lamb. Hi, Charlotte. Good afternoon. That’s right. This week, we’ve had EU blowdowns to US courtroom showdowns. But the real question is whether this marks the beginning of a tech reckoning or will it merely be just just the latest slap on the wrist in a global decadesl long battle against that tech empire Google. So let’s start in the US and on Tuesday a federal judge surprised both Silicon Valley and legal analysts ruling that Google doesn’t have to sell its Chrome browser or its Android operating system. Now, this is something the US was seeking in a bid to break up Google’s search engine dominance. And it’s been a case that’s been deliberated for about five years, and it comes just a year after that same judge ruled that Google was in fact acting illegally, crushing competition, and maintaining a monopoly when it comes to online searches. So, antitrust activists, they’re saying this latest ruling is a light-handed punishment. But the company has been ordered to open up its vast store of data searches and to share that information with competitors to help level that playing field and it’s still expected to send a ripple across this technological landscape, particularly ones being reshaped by artificial intelligence. We have programs like chat GPT and Perplexity. They’re all trying to upend Google’s long-held position as the internet’s main gateway. And even the judge wrote in this ruling that the rise of artificial intelligence changed the course of this case. Charlotte, so what do you think this all means for for ordinary internet users like you and me? Do you think we’ll actually be able to perceive a difference in the short term? Probably there’s not going to be much difference. Our search engines will still look the same even with more data shared and access. People are likely to opt for Google purely out of habit and out of ease. It’s what we’re used to. It’s what we’ve been using for decades now. And the critics are warning that these so-called behavioral remedies, they don’t go far enough to change Google’s search engine dominance. But over time, if rivals get fairer access to the market, this creates competition and there will be more choice. And as we mentioned before, AI is rapidly changing the game. So, how we’re searching for information today is not necessarily how we’re going to be searching for information tomorrow. Now, let’s cross over to the European Union. What do we know about this fine that it’s slapped on Google? Well, Friday brought a transatlantic shockwave. And I mean the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion euros for abusing its power in online advertising. Regulators say Google has been favoring its own ad exchange at the expense of rivals, publishers, and advertisers. And the officials there, they’ve ordered the tech giant to end these self-p preferencing practices within 90 days. And they’re threatening even tougher measures if Google doesn’t comply. And just this week alone, Google was hit with other fines. We know in the US it has it’s been asked to pay $425 million for gathering data from smartphone users that their privacy settings should have protected. And in France, the data protection authority fined Google €325 million for failing to respect the law on internet cookies. Uh obviously Donald Trump, the US isn’t very happy about this. Oh, President Trump is certainly not happy. He’s calling the penalty unfair and discriminatory. He’s even threatening retaliation. Let’s take a listen. We’re upset with uh the European Union because of what’s happening with not just Google but with all of our big companies. They just, you know, hit them with these mass these unbelievable fines. Google is a great company, American company. Uh Apple is a great American company and so many others and the European Union. I don’t know why they do it, but they they have been finding them numbers that have been astronomical. So this, interestingly enough, comes just days after he whined and dined with tech executives at the White House. Among that list was Google’s own CEO. Now, this fine in Europe is is is a big it’s a big deal. But is this is this new? I imagine that Google has obviously been in trouble with the European Union before. It certainly has. It’s actually one of four fines that it’s received in the last decade in 2017 for its shopping service, its Android mobile system in 2018, and the AdSense platform in 2019. all found to have abused market dominance to block competitors and limit consumer choices. But what’s different about Friday’s decision is that the commission wants structural remedies and not just money. And that raises the possibility of Google being a being forced to sell part of its ad business. And so that means a breakup is very much still on the cards. And finally, um, Charlie, what do you think this means then for for Google, for the Google empire, and for big tech, especially American big tech going forward? Well, if if we look at the history, the last time there was a genuine monopoly breakup was the Bell system of the US telephone infrastructure, and that was in 1984. And so for those expecting another big breakup of the tech giants in this 21st century, the US ruling shows we’re not quite there yet. Instead, the courts seem to be opting for behavioral changes and data sharing. So, what we know for sure is that the global battle over big tech’s power is only just heating up. And we’re actually seeing similar antitrust cases such as the state in Virginia right

It’s been a week for the history books for Google. The tech giant dodged an order to sell off significant parts of its business in a landmark antitrust ruling in the United States. Then, days later, it was hit with a major fine by the EU for monopolising online advertisements. We take a closer look.
#artificial intelligence #google #antitrust

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2 comments

  1. So Google, which has been identified changing search results based on payment by third parties, was declared a monopoly for buying up a ton of competing services under one gateway. And the same judge who condemned them now says it's less of a risk because of AI…

    …which Google has received tens of billions in subsidies from the US government to develop but won't tell anyone how it works or where its learning base comes from.

    We are so very safe. I am glad we are so incredibly safe. 🙃🫠

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