Imagining possible Google futures
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Googly eyes.
🌟 Feature
The country’s most consequential anti-trust case in a generation is going on right now and basically no one knows that it is happening. In United States v. Google LLC, the Department of Justice has filed a suit against Google for its monopolistic practices in search and AdTech. The suit is the largest DOJ claim against a tech company since a landmark Microsoft trial, a trial that forced Microsoft to bring down much of the walled garden of their monopoly over personal computing operating systems. This allowed for a massive boom in the computing market, allowing for innovations that we are still iterating on today. Your MacOS? It has this trial to thank directly.
So what is Google actually accused of doing? They are accused of using their dominant market power in search and AdTech to squash competition at almost every juncture. They are self preferential of Google owned content, for example, prioritizing YouTube content above other kinds of results. They box Bing and other search engines out by paying billions (with a B) each year (yes, year) to companies like Samsung and Apple to be the default search engine on their phones.
Some free market enthusiasts may look at these two examples and suggest that these are just the results of doing business. “Google has a better product,” they might say, “and they are well within their right to take advantage of their success.” Sure, but the history of American business has always been effected by government intervention, and when the shit has hit the fan in the past (see: Standard Oil, The Paramount Decree, and the Microsoft decision) anti-trust has come to save the day.
I should add here and make extremely clear my position and the position of this newsletter: Monopolies=bad. Very bad. They are directly bad for labor in the ways they can control the salary market, they are directly bad for consumers with excessive cost raises (see: literally now when inflation is at an all time high but, curiously, profits are at an all time high 🤔), they are directly bad for markets because they stifle innovation. In practically every measurable instance, the break up of monopolies has not just improved the outlook of labor, consumers, and markets, but even the very companies that get broken up in the first place.
So, what could happen if the DOJ wins this case? Google could be forced to split out its advertising business, its search business, or both. In a sense, this would be unprecedented (only not because Microsoft lost its case 25 years ago). It would be unprecedented because people across all demographics and geographies engage with the internet in one primary way: Search. Google.com is the world’s most used homepage, it is the way that people even get around the internet. Search is the highways and the cars on them. Search is the air and the wind. We have built our entire online economy around search. Who is searching for what, who is paying to show up in what searches, how your search data gets sold and bought and sold and bought so that those ads you see following you around the internet get put up. To imagine a world where Google and Google Search are not the same thing is nearly impossible.
Nearly. Let’s imagine some possible futures if Alex Schneidman’s dream comes true and Google has to split up.
We could see some genuine innovation in search. And I don’t just mean AI assisted search or some other thing on top of what we already have. I mean a dramatic infrastructural change. I imagine a future of decentralized, non-Ad supported search. In this way, the internet may function more like Wikipedia, where you kind of have to know what you’re looking for to find it. But, this would allow some oxygen to various algorithmic approaches to discovery and recommendation that we have yet to see. Perhaps, for example, the sites that don’t spend on getting their name in blue on the first page of Google results might see some daylight.
Ad tracking could be totally different and more user responsive. Imagine, for example, true dial and lever control of how the internet can track you. Right now, Google, with its own browser and its own search and its own advertising technology is following you around the internet, across devices. They even just introduced a new cookie-less way to essentially surveil everything you do. Breaking Google up would allow for consumer choice in these sorts of things. Don’t want anything you do on the internet to be tracked and bought and sold? Go with new company A. Want an experience like we have now where ads seem to be listening to your thoughts? Go with company B. Want a sort of balance where you get to set preferences for the types of products or services you might be looking for? Go with company C.
There’s a ton more to think about. What happens if Apple makes their own search engine? What happens to the SEO farms churning out AI blogs for clicks? What does it look like if Google doesn’t control the flow of information for 93% of the planet?
The reason nobody is talking about this trial is that the judge has ordered no devices or electronic recordings to be made by either party or by the journalists looking to cover it. They are literally in there handwriting what they hear. For the next several weeks we’ll just have to wait until Judge Mehta announces a decision.
📚 Reading list
For a great breakdown on the why’s and what’s of the Google case:
Searching for a Breakup, by Professor Scott Galloway
⚡️ Lightning
Love my new iPhone. Was very worried I wouldn’t like the big screen. I love the big screen.
📕 Glossary
SEO
Search Engine Optimization. Might as well be called “Google Optimization.” The method by which people and companies boost their listings in Google search by taking advantage of certain key search phrases. If you’ve ever seen an Amazon product listing that is like “Electronic Shaver for Men Women Handheld Battery Powered Fast Charging Mens Womens Shaver Protection From Razor Burn Full Body Face,” this is because the person/robot who made the listing has decided that those are the terms that will most likely land someone searching on their listing.
📱 Home Screen
Didn’t have time this week to make this happen. If you want to be featured soon shoot me a message!
☎️ Answers
This week we just have a “pro-tip” from Alex M. Here’s what he has to say:
Pro tip for friends of the pod:
Target sells certified refurbished Sony products, which includes their v popular
"WH-1000XM4 Noise Canceling Overhead Bluetooth Wireless Headphones." They're not the newest newest model but for $50+ off I'll look past that. Can confirm that I purchased these and they are basically new except they don't come in the original box.
That’s all for this week! Thanks!