There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Google Search is an illegal monopoly — what happens now?

A federal judge has ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly in the US. “The market reality is that Google is the only real choice” as the default search engine, Judge Amit Mehta said in his decision, and he determined it had gotten that way unfairly. It’s a ruling that could portend big changes for the company, but we yet don’t know how big, and we might not for years.

Mehta declared on Monday that Google was liable for violating antitrust laws, vindicating the Department of Justice and a coalition of states that sued the tech giant in 2020. The next step — deciding on remedies for its illegal conduct — begins next month. Both parties must submit a proposed schedule for remedy proceedings by September 4th and then appear at a status conference on September 6th.

yogthos ,
@yogthos@lemmy.ml avatar

What happens now is that Google appeals and then the case will bounce around different courts for years to come, and maybe one day the supreme court will hear it assuming that US lasts that long as a country.

SoylentBlake ,

Yip. I took the government what, 17 years…? from suing to breaking up AT+T, and they were the largest company in America that entire time.

At+t tried to slap em with some exorbitant long distance charges and Uncle Sam got tired of the fuck around.

To today; Google’s been showing the wrong people the wrong kind of ads. Showing representatives ads for laundromats and daycares that offer drivinga ed after looking up how to launder money and traffic children. NO google, I did NOT mean THAT

UnfortunateShort ,

I have used Google, DDG, Bing and Ecosia (which is basically Bing) at this point and ingl, none of them really stands out for its results. If anything, I think DDG and Bing beat Google.

Google might be the first company to create a monopoly out money and apathy. The apathy of users who don’t care about their search engine enough to even change the default.

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Honeslty all search engines have gone to shit since the internet got polluted with AI-generated nonsense. Its a very hard problem to solve.

TheYang ,
@TheYang@lemmy.world avatar

this could be bad for mozilla / firefox.

if Google can’t continue to try to increase / sustain their market share, they may stop paying mozilla to be thw default.

refalo ,

default what?

simple ,

Google pays Firefox a lot of cash to be the default search engine on their browser.

KarnaSubarna OP ,
@KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml avatar

Do you really think Google will give up on their pole position because of this verdict?

Reality_Suit ,

So now we need to make sure we keep supporting Firefox. I have a feeling that most people who can choose, do in fact coose firefox, and the majority of chrome users do so because it’s on their business or student computers.

pineapple_pizza ,

How does one support Firefox in a post Google paying them world?

I know the Mozilla foundation takes donations but it doesn’t seem like those go to Firefox development. Maybe I’m wrong though.

Quill7513 ,

Some of it does. But currently a lot of it doesn’t because they can rely on the google funding. You can also donate volunteering time to Mozilla projects you want to support like Firefox or Thunderbird

RobotToaster ,
@RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

A lot goes on the CEO’s $7,000,000 salary.

Quill7513 ,

Yeah. The CEO class needs to be eliminated from the upper stratus of society. If you think monetary donations to Mozilla aren’t worth it as a result, I get it, and I’m right there with you. I don’t donate money. But also… In the browser space if money is what you want to donate, it might be the best route.

Reality_Suit ,

I’m not sure, but non profits have made millions in the past, and they were supposed to pass the money on to someone else, such as the corrupt Susan G. Komen, but did not. So yeah, Mozilla could be supported by donations alone.

refalo ,

I thought the money was to protect their monopoly status.

InFerNo ,

That’s saying the quiet part loud

chicken ,

It’s important though because if that’s the real reason Google pays them, they could come up with some other excuse to give them the money.

CarbonIceDragon ,
@CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social avatar

Default search engine on their browser?

Reality_Suit ,

You can easily change the default.

atro_city ,

That's not the point. The point is Google is paying Mozilla to be the default. Google pays them 500M per year to be the default. If at some point Google legally isn't allowed to do so, Mozilla can say bye bye to 500M/year.

atro_city ,

Mozilla already started sending your data to advertisers by default in firefox 128. If Google's money dries up, I can't even begin to imagine what fucked up shit they'll do.

ricecake ,

…mozilla.org/…/privacy-preserving-attribution

Hardly qualifies as “sending your data to advertisers”.

atro_city ,

I wish I could be that naive.

SaltySalamander ,

You certainly seem to lack reading comprehension.

ricecake ,

Very persuasive argument, definitely shows a strong grasp of the technical matters.

theshatterstone54 ,

If they do and Firefox dies, they’re getting ANOTHER Antitrust trial (hopefully).

ssm ,
@ssm@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

If Mozilla needs Google to survive, they can go down with the ship for all I care. Mozilla are bad actors anyways.

SaltySalamander ,

If not Mozilla or Google, what will you use for a browser?

ssm ,
@ssm@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

There’s a decent selection at the moment:

If you need javascript+css: qtwebkit, gtkwebkit, qtwebengine ( blink based :( ), Ladybird (I really don’t care if the dev sucks; goolag/mozilla’s browser monopoly is too important for me to care about some stupid idpol takes)

If you don’t need javascript but want css: netsurf (there is technically javascript support, but it’s worked absolutely nowhere in my experience)

If you’re an epic hackor that doesn’t need either: w3m, links2, links, lynx

I mostly use w3m, and qutebrowser (qtwebkit and qtwebengine) when I need js. I’ll probably replace qutebrowser with Ladybird once there’s a port for OpenBSD (trying to write my own at the moment).

If you just want to abandon www all together, check out gemini and gopher clients.

kitnaht ,

Great, so now we get a Microsoft/Google duopoly. Rejoice… /sigh

Donjuanme ,

You’d complain about a ton of gold being too heavy wouldn’t you?

kitnaht ,

I’m complaining about the lack of something real ever happening to these companies. Just because you’re too ignorant to understand what is(n’t) going on here, doesn’t mean that I’m complaining just for the sake of it.

Duopolys aren’t any better than Monopolies, except for the illusion of choice. They’ll move lock-step in line with one another, just like duopolys do, they’ll still use the same anticompetitive practices, but instead of getting fucked by one dick, now you’re getting fucked by two.

I’m glad you like being fucked so much that you’re rejoicing over this news, but I’d rather there be real competition.

SaltySalamander ,

As soon as a company puts forth a superior search engine. We're all waiting.......

refalo ,

How many companies does it take to not become an -opoly anymore?

kitnaht ,

It’s not really the number of companies that determines this, but rather the lack of any real competition. A small enough number of companies makes this more likely, so there’s not likely a hard number of say…over 5 companies isn’t an oligopoly, they can still be - so long as they’re all focused on each other. If you see 1 company raise it’s prices and all 4 others do too, then it’s still an oligopoly. Because even though they aren’t actively getting together, and saying “hey let’s all raise our prices!”, (collusion) - the effect is the same.

It ceases to be that when barriers to entry don’t stop new competition from entering, and competition is active. (at least, that’s the simplified answer; there’s some more nuance to it, but that should at least give an overall understanding)

palarith ,

Google search opens up to more corps so everyone can get in on the enshittification

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •