Big Tech in Trouble: Google Faces Antitrust Blow

According to the New York Times, a federal judge ruled that Google must share parts of its search index with competitors after being found guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly. While the government had pushed for a breakup, including forcing Google to sell Chrome. The judge stopped short, calling for humility and crafting remedies. The ruling is the most significant antitrust case since Microsoft 20 years ago. Google can still pay for prime placement on smartphones and browsers, but it can no longer rely on exclusive deals to shut out. Rival investors cheered with Alphabet stock jumping 8%. From a communications perspective, Google spun the decision as validation that competition is intense, while regulators called it a first step in leveling the field. Okay, so what's the real meaning here? I think it's good that the government is taking an action, trying to break up some of the monopoly power of Google. I kind of feel like it's 20 years too late. Google, for so long has been able to do whatever it wants. If you've ever had a YouTube channel shut down and there's nobody to call, like I have, you know, the power of a monopoly that's making so much money, they can just thumb their noses at all the customers. And that's the problem Google has had. We've had a real problem with startup culture in America for the last 20 years because a handful of companies, including Google, are so big and powerful, they can just stifle any competition or buy it up. I'm hoping this leads to some change. Let's dig a little deeper here. Again, I wish this had happened 20 years ago. When you look at the history of big tech companies that have been broken up at&T Microsoft, they still do really well. They still do extraordinarily well, but it allows for competition. The whole notion of a free market system is you need to have competition. And ask yourself, when's the last time you said to yourself, hmm, which search engine should I use? Well, if you're like me and most people, until about six months ago, the answer was never. You use Google now. What. What is interesting, although sort of after the fact, is this idea that now we do have competition. Now when they're finally breaking up this monopoly, there is competition in the form of artificial intelligence. I find myself frequently not using Google search anymore because I'm doing everything on ChatGPT. And you may use Grok, you may use Claude. There are a lot of good AI systems out there and that do as good, if not better, than Google. So it is a bit ironic that at the very time when there's more competition flooding in to Google than ever before. Finally the government says, okay, let's break up this monopoly. But you know, better late than never from a communication standpoint. I think it's good for anyone who's a small business, like I am, like maybe you are to have some dispersion of the power because for so long all of us have, have lived and died by Google's whims of who gets to show up in SEO. And I'll be the first one to admit I benefited from what they did. I was able to get on the first page often number one for the search term of media training. I had to hire an SEO company and they figured out how to game the system so that I showed up number one. And that's how I actually got clients who were presidents of countries, prime ministers and world leaders and owners of baseball teams because of Google. So I benefited from them. But I've also had changes where the algorithm goes, eh, and Now I'm number 11. And the old story of you know, what's, where's the best place to commit a murder, the second page of Google because no one will ever find you is in some respects true. So I think it's high time that the government tried to take away some of the power. It's, it's always funny to see these tech lords who benefit almost in their entire existence because of big government. The big, big government created the Internet. No one likes to admit that came from defense department initiatives, federal tax dollars. It came from people like Al Gore. Yes. Who passed legislation to enable the Internet. It came from other aspects of defense spending that created gps. Things like Uber wouldn't exist without it. And Google, Waze could not exist without big government creating these satellites. Satellite. So so much of the wealth of the founders of Google and the founders of Facebook and all these other companies comes from government. So they would all be, I don't know if they'd be running gas stations somewhere or you know, general managers at a car dealership, but they would not be these multi, multi, multi billionaires they are today without big government. So it's a bit rich for them to be saying, well, let's get the government out of the free market enterprise system. There would be no high tech industry without big government. Sorry, that's not a politically correct thing to say. It's not going to get me a dinner invitation with Marc Andreessen, but it's just true. And so if you, if your entire existence, if all of your wealth is based on government R and D, it only makes sense. It's only fair play at some point to say, okay, maybe the government can try to regulate in ways to help other people too, because it was the government regulation that created the Internet, created gps, created, and it benefited me. If I'm a tech lord, why not use this government regulation to in fact benefit all the other people in the world, especially other entrepreneurs trying to create new businesses? Well, yesterday I don't think went far enough, at least for me and a lot of people. But it did say that Google has to start sharing information. They got to make it easier for other companies to get a foothold on the information superhighway, to use an old term that isn't used very often. And so I think overall that is a good thing. What do you think? Post your comments right here. If you're listening to this on itunes or Google Play or Spotify or any other podcasting platform, you can always go to the community, the TJ Walker Community TJ Walker Success channel on YouTube and post on the Community Channel there as well. Any place you are watching or listening to this, that thank you so much for doing so. Please subscribe. Please leave Reviews we are brand new and this is the first edition of the show.