Google in Massive Trouble

[Dave The Man]

https://twitter.com/Katharine_Kemp/status/1319043753236021249?s=20

[Tannin]

That's what they would like us to believe.

The reality is that US antitrust laws have been routinely ignored, watered-down, perverted, and emasculated these last 30-odd years. From the point of view of a monopolist, they are about as frightening as a chocolate scorpion.

The last time they were used to properly go after an abusive monopolist, the judge (in a moment of supreme bravery, or possibly just indifference to his future career) ordered a substantive remedy .... which lasted about ten minutes. The appeal court was falling over itself to set all meaningful penalties aside, and the monopolist was free to continue on its merry way, totally ignoring the law as usual.

But lets pretend for a moment (yes it's ridiculous but let's pretend anyway) that Google could get a realistic and practical ruling - say, to split the advertising and search operations into different companies. What would it mean to Google? Not much. They'd still make huge profits. They are on a remarkably low, all things considered, price-earnings of 24. A split-up Google could easily justify that price. Easily.

Honestly, the EU is the only jurisdiction likely to actually do anything, and that won't be enough.

[David]

^ That’s disappointing to hear, as I was pretty excited to read this (here’s the direct link to the article in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/the-us-is-taking-on-google-in-a-huge-antitrust-case-it-could-change-the-face-of-online-search-148519). Hope the case against them can somehow succeed – it would be the best news in the internet realm for a long time.

[Tannin]

I'm not following this in any detail, but if I was to have a wild guess at the outcome, I'd put my money on a weak verdict of small to moderate consequence, followed by a Google appeal over a background of heavy political lobbying, winding up with them getting off scot-free. (I.e., same as the famous Microsoft case, only with a much milder initial penalty.)

But that's just a guess. Hope I'm wrong!

[Dave The Man]

The Mega Rich Run the World

[Tannin]

You are not wrong, Dave.