The DOJ's Google antitrust ruling could send massive ripples through the tech world. Or maybe nothing really changes.
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Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled Monday that Google has illegally monopolized Internet searches by breaking agreements with browsers and phone companies. For example, Google pays Apple about $20 billion a year to be the default search engine in the Safari browser. The judge will decide next month what to do about it, but it could go as far as forcing Google to separate its search and advertising operations, similar to the DOJ's forced breakup of Microsoft in the 1990s.
"I can't believe it took this long for the DOJ to do something about a company that's been the gateway to the entire Internet for 20 years, but here we are," Bill Mann, privacy expert at Cyber Insider, told Lifewire via e-mail mail. "If the DOJ breaks up Google's monopoly, it will affect people about as much as Microsoft's antitrust ruling did over 20 years ago. Google will be forced to create some separation between their advertising arm, their mobile technology, and other parts of their business. Even if advertising becomes a separate device, it won't change the fact that the majority of people turn to Google for searches and have mobile phones full of Google apps and services."
After decades of being allowed to do whatever the hell they want in the name of "innovation," Big Tech companies are finally being held back by the law, just like every other major industry that requires safety regulations to protect the public. We're so used to Google serving search ads and ads on the internet that we don't see the absurd conflict between controlling access to the entire web and also selling ads against that access.
