Earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that Google has a monopoly on search.
Yes, you heard that bombshell correctly.
Google. The company whose name everybody uses as shorthand for “‘search” has a monopoly. On search.
The White House called the verdict “a victory for the American people.” Attorney General Merrick Garland declared it “an historic win.” A “staggering defeat” for Google, crowed CNN which, like most media outlets, compared the verdict to the 2001 U.S. vs Microsoft antitrust ruling over the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows.
In reality, the only truly staggering thing about the Google judgment is that it took almost four years to arrive. In fairness to the government, it was also working on several equally complicated investigations: the five-year probe into whether the Pope is, in fact, Catholic; a decades-long trial to identify who has been shitting in the woods adjacent to the bear colony.
As for the comparison to the Microsoft verdict … well, sure. The Google judgment is very similar insofar as it cost a ton of taxpayer money and will have next to zero long-term impact on the company’s size or dominance. As Axios put it: “Google … will remain a digital Goliath,” adding “it’s fairly common for complex antitrust decisions like this one to be overturned.”
Indeed, while the case was plodding along, Google’s traditional search tools were being rapidly eclipsed by the rise of AI. Specifically by OpenAI, the plucky startup whose biggest investor is… Microsoft. The same DOJ-humbled Microsoft that is currently the second most valuable company on the planet with a 72% market share of desktop operating systems.
Of course I’m being obtuse. Tech monopolies are bad, for consumers and the market, and the DOJ has long provided an important guardrail against them. Back in 1982, the government broke up AT&T and created real competition in the telecoms industry. The Microsoft ruling is rightly cited as a watermark moment in Silicon Valley, opening up competition in the web browser market.
But, historically, the real, lasting impact of antitrust actions against big tech has been in reshaping public perception. The reason the Microsoft judgment still echoes is because it was the moment when, for many, the company was transformed from a harmless bunch of nerds into the predatory corporate behemoth we all now understand it to be.
In that context, the contrast between the reaction to the Microsoft case (whoa!) and the Google judgment (yawn!) underscores how much Silicon Valley has changed in the past two decades.
Simply put, it is no longer shocking — or even remarkable — to learn that tech companies would cheat and break the law to maintain dominance. Uber, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Tesla — the most successful companies in tech are also globally recognized as the ones most ready to ignore, defy or rewrite the law to boost themselves and squash competitors.
Even Apple, still beloved by the most annoying people you know, is widely understood to be a rapacious megacorp, trapping users into its network of devices, previously built on the backs of child labor. Depressingly, it’s products are so shiny and magical, that we can’t bring ourselves to be angry.
Back in 2001, users hated being forced to use Internet Explorer. Today users are all-in on monopolies, although we prefer to call them “ecosystems.” It’s not that we don’t see their harms; it’s just that, in the face of their obvious-if-often-dubious benefits (free productivity software better than the stuff Microsoft used to sell for bank; same-day delivery of all manner of garbage; limitless streaming of incomprehensible Marvel shows) we don’t care anymore.
And therein lies the real challenge for the government. According to Morning Consult, just 44% of the public actively supports the DOJ action against Google. In a world where tech is scanning our eyeballs for free crypto, how can the DOJ recapture public anger over a search company owning all the searches?
Perhaps they could take their cue from the incredible effectiveness of the Harris/Walz presidential ticket. Just a few weeks ago, voter enthusiasm for the election was at an all-time low. Voters knew that Donald Trump was a felon and JD Vance a fascist-curious cutout for Big Tech but that knowledge had just become background noise.
Then along came Harris and Walz with an understanding that, particularly for younger voters, there is something far, far more damning than being a would-be dictator. And that’s being “weird” or, even worse, “creepy.”
You want weird and creepy? Meet Google. This is a company that follows you around the Internet, remembering every site you visit. It passes that information to its friends so they can sell you things. Its AI wants you to eat glue.
That is the message the DOJ should be using to hammer Google. To break up its monopoly through sheer force of eww.
A modest proposal: The DOJ’s antitrust division is no longer fit for purpose. It should be disbanded and replaced with a new, much cheaper, “Department of WTF?!” In lieu of expensive jury trials, the DOWTF?! — staffed by five ticktokkers and a folksy suburban dad — would generate an endless stream of viral videos, relentlessly hitting big tech for giving the ick or being just plain sus.
Google has a monopoly on search, but did you know its ad platform likes to hump soft furnishings?
Do you guys think iMessage wears lifts in its shoes?
At night, most of PayPal’s founders fantasize about JD Vance.
Actually, that last one’s true.
Of course, this new approach likely wouldn’t do anything to curb big tech’s dominance or anti-competitive behavior in the long term. But then, neither do most antitrust verdicts. The DOWTF?! could have exactly the same impact, for pennies on the dollar.
And, my god, the appeals hearings would be hilarious.