Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China' (cnbc.com)
- Reference: 0177080409
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/22/0137218/google-says-doj-breakup-would-harm-us-in-global-race-with-china
- Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/21/google-argues-doj-breakup-could-hurt-us-economy-in-battle-with-china.html
> The remedies trial in Washington, D.C., follows a judge's ruling in August that Google has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. The Justice Department has called for Google to divest its Chrome browser unit and open its search data to rivals.
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> Google said in a [3]blog post on Monday that such a move is not in the best interest of the country as the global battle for supremacy in artificial intelligence rapidly intensifies. In the first paragraph of the post, Google named China's DeepSeek as an emerging AI competitor. The DOJ's proposal would "hamstring how we develop AI, and have a government-appointed committee regulate the design and development of our products," Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, wrote in the post. "That would hold back American innovation at a critical juncture. We're in a fiercely competitive global race with China for the next generation of technology leadership, and Google is at the forefront of American companies making scientific and technological breakthroughs."
[1] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/04/21/1736226/google-faces-off-with-us-government-in-attempt-to-break-up-company-in-search-monopoly-case
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/21/google-argues-doj-breakup-could-hurt-us-economy-in-battle-with-china.html
[3] https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/doj-search-remedies-apr-2025/
Indeed (Score:3)
I would feel much better if Google could give me authentic made in the USA advertising which is genuine leather ones and zeros. No imitation binary stuff, it's bad for the health, we were told.
competition from China? (Score:1)
But isn't China collapsing?
Don't China only make cheap junk?
Didn't Trump's million% tariffs put the final nail in the Chinese coffin?
Surely the ban on chips worked?
How about demographic collapse?
The real-estate collapse?
Didn't they all die of Covid?
Well, shit...
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
> But isn't China collapsing?
Not yet. Even Xi will need a decade or two to run it into the ground.
> Don't China only make cheap junk?
Mostly. But that doesn't mean they can't improve in some areas.
> Didn't Trump's million% tariffs put the final nail in the Chinese coffin?
Only the trumpists, the US analogue of the hardline Chinese communists, would believe that. You one of them, or one of their mirror image?
> Surely the ban on chips worked?
Have you seen any FPGA or GPU out of China that is close to anything Nvidia can produce?
> How about demographic collapse?
> The real-estate collapse?
> Didn't they all die of Covid?
> Well, shit...
You're confused about how these work in relation to the problem at hand. Pick a book or two and maybe you won't look like a complete idiot in a forum like
Re: (Score:3)
woosh
Re: competition from China? (Score:2)
You really didn't get the very explicit sarcasm?
Re: (Score:2)
They *are* winning this. The entire world is turning to them for financial stability and funding for infrastructure projects, and turning away from the US.
Re: (Score:2)
China doesn't only make cheap junk. They make intermediate goods. Stuff that 'Made in the USA' companies assemble and label as our own. They also make a lot of cheap junk, but that's actually their least important input/outputs.
Google doesn't have any kind of search monopoly (Score:2)
The fix is obviously in on that one. There are many other search engines.
However, the idea that the U.S. can't break up Google because we need to compete with China on magical AI fairy dust is completely bonkers.
Re:Google doesn't have any kind of search monopoly (Score:5, Interesting)
Google had [1]86.83% marketshare in March 2025 [statcounter.com]. How much more until they're a monopoly by your reckoning?
[1] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/united-states-of-america
Re: (Score:2)
94% on mobile!!
Although I am wondering who still uses Yahoo! for search?
Re: (Score:3)
> Although I am wondering who still uses Yahoo! for search?
Yahoo greatly outperforms Google in a number of languages. Especially in cases where code-switching occurs.
Re: (Score:3)
The fact that Google has abused their monopoly as already been decided in court. Now they are arguing about what the punishment will be.
Note that regarding your argument, Google didn't have to be a monopoly to break the law, they have to do illegal anti-competitive behavior.
The Global Race With China. (Score:4, Insightful)
> Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China'
Sure, because the thing the US needs most in a competition with a hyper competitive Chinese tech industry is to keep America's fossilized monopolies in tact and to make it even easier for them to crush any emerging competitors and potential disruptors of the treasured status quo through a direct transactional connection to the White House. If there is one thing that will harm the US in the 'Global Race With China' it is these dinosaurs not being broken up to facilitate some semblance of the kind of competition that exists in the Chinese tech industry in the US.
Excuse of the day... (Score:5, Insightful)
But, but, but... NATIONAL SECURITY! WAR WITH CHINA!
It's just today's "won't anyone think about the kids".
Chrome (Score:2)
Chrome is spyware / malware. It is probably the worst thing ever to happen to privacy in the history of the web and its massive dominance is huge part of it.
Forcing them to spin that off along with some prohibition on Alphabet or its subsidiaries purchasing telemetry data collected by the new Chrome organization, should be all that is required here.
Its a pissing contest (Score:2)
Not a race.
Who said anything about breaking up the DOJ? (Score:2)
Because that's clearly what the headline says. I would have thought Google's concern would be being broken up by the DOJ, but that is clearly what the headline does not say.
Re: (Score:1)
Give Elon another week; DOJ broken up by DOGE.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, it doesn't need to be broken up, It's already broken.
How about (Score:2)
we compare the harm of breaking them up in the trade war with China vs the harm of letting them be an illegal monopoly in the power struggle in the US?
Some questions can't be asked.
What happened? (Score:2)
Did Google not pay "fees" to the right people? Knowing the way a certain president made bilionares richer while appearing to bumble about with tarrifs, surely what they are doing is trying to make money for the "right" people?
Re: (Score:2)
> Did Google not pay "fees" to the right people? Knowing the way a certain president made bilionares richer while appearing to bumble about with tarrifs, surely what they are doing is trying to make money for the "right" people?
Don't worry. Google was only found guilty last week. They haven't been sentenced yet. There's still time for Google to pay the right people to make it go away.
In the end that's all that matters - Google being guilty means diddly squat, like Microsoft was found guilty. All that matters
Search isn't the problem (Score:3)
> a judge's ruling in August that Google has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search
Search by itself isn't the problem. The problem is the combination of search and advertising. Those absolutely need to be separated, because the synergies between the two are just too large.
Double-edged Argument. (Score:2)
Wow. So Google is actually trying to use the excuse of a weakened National Defense? For the United States?
Sounds like a business suddenly critical enough for the United States Government to take over and run instead of civilians profiting obscenely off it.
Hows that sound, Google?
Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.
Fling and see what sticks (Score:2)
So Google gets a list of bogeymen and flings them at the wall, to see what sticks...
That's the wrong argument (Score:2)
Google is giving the DOJ their own winning argument. Trump's DOJ is clearly operating with a strategic goal to help China flourish at the expense of the US economy; why else would he structure his tariffs like that?
Competition promotes innovation? (Score:1)
Doesnt this argument belie the competition promotes innovation thesis central to capitalism? Isnt the corollary of Googles argument that either a command & control/ communist/ authoritarian/ crony monopolistic form of politics/economics is in their opinion superior for innovation?
More like the other way round... (Score:5, Insightful)
Monopolies are _always_ bad for everybody except the monopolists and anybody in league with them. But direct lies are acceptable and business as usual these days...
Re: (Score:2)
They just know which buttons to push.
Re: (Score:2)
It does seem all rather hypocritical at this stage. But I guess that's normal too.
Google is far from the main problem here. Selling off Android and Chrome doesn't solve any problem with the social media algorithms nor user tracking. I'd say it'll just make it all the worse. Youtube has issues but again, I don't see forcing Alphabet to sell anything as a rectification for that.
Making even-handed laws and enforcing them is where the problems get solved.
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, if it resulted in the complete destruction of Android, that could be a good outcome. It might give alternative types of ad channels a chance.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what we're all desperately seeking. More compromised ad bars with malicious code. /eyeroll
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Yes, let's destroy the only viable competitor to another monopolist, creating a de facto smartphone OS monopoly - what a great outcome!
Re: (Score:2)
The massive amount of telemetry Alphabet hovers up from Chrome and Android, are exactly the problem.
Google search isn't magic, it isnt even better then most of its competitors from a results perspective these days, what is better at is ad revenue, because Google is better at ad targeting than anyone else (save perhaps Meta and only for certain demographics).
Take away Google's global spyware operation (what Chrome and Android actually are) and you take away the advantage they have in the market place.
Re: (Score:3)
So you're saying that their search works better because they collect the data needed to make it work better? Wow, how awful! I can't wait for us to have worse search results when we break up this evil monopoly!
Telemetry isn't magic either, chicken little privacy advocates seem to have forgotten that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's an appeal to nationalism during an administration that's dead-set on using nationalism to bully the entire world.
Re: (Score:2)
This strategy may buy them something with Trump, but ultimately, it doesn't help much. Trump isn't litigating this case. And Trump isn't going to be around when the appeals all expire and whatever happens (a breakup, a gigantic fine, who knows) as a result takes effect. At best, that argument is a play to get the case dismissed on the whims of a naked emperor (no clothes, get it?) But it's a long shot.
Re: (Score:2)
> This strategy may buy them something with Trump, but ultimately, it doesn't help much. Trump isn't litigating this case. And Trump isn't going to be around when the appeals all expire and whatever happens (a breakup, a gigantic fine, who knows) as a result takes effect. At best, that argument is a play to get the case dismissed on the whims of a naked emperor (no clothes, get it?) But it's a long shot.
Can't disagree with your analysis at all. But the big business world seems to love sucking up to the would be God Emperor when it looks like it could result in a net positive for them. I don't think he's in control of the courts though, so it may just be all for show and favor currying "Just in case."