Google Antitrust Trial: A Balancing Act Between Competition and Innovation

With the Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Google starting off, it felt like a good time to talk about how Google’s ubiquity has raised governmental concerns that could impede its rate of progress. Not only is the US looking into how they practically control search, but their rule on mobile has also been a target for countries like India. The almost quarter of a century-year-old company has never been under such scrutiny. The results of this trial could not only decide Google’s future, but our own.

Google Antitrust Suit

The DOJ’s case against Google is targeting Google’s supposed monopoly of search and search advertising. They cite Google's conduct of acquiring competitors, forcing adoption of Google’s tools, distorting auction competition, and auction manipulation as anticompetitive behavior. The majority of its issues are how Google handles B2B operations.

The full press release can be read here.

It is being mentioned a lot how Google pays to have Safari and Firefox use Google’s search engine. It’s worth noting that Google isn’t the only search engine that does this. McAfee’s Antivirus software has been trying to force people to use Yahoo’s SafeSearch for years which I think is a far greater crime. The argument that Google makes it hard for consumers to use other browsers by default is kind of funny. I don’t see how the government can force companies to offer a clear selection of search engines on all devices. Does Google need to give you a clear Bing option on its Chromebooks and Pixel devices? Does Edge need to give a clear option to Google something? Will we finally be able to Google things from the taskbar?!!

Google Love

Google has some serious brand love. With so many news outlets citing their notoriety as an issue, I wanted to take the time to talk about how that may not be the problem they claim it is. With all Windows and Mac computers coming without the Google browser installed, millions opt-in to using it because of the perceived superior experience. Consumers love using Google search. Odds are that if some kind of regulation was made that multiple search engine options required to be made available on devices, it would just hurt Bing and Yahoo. The only search engine it would likely benefit from would be DuckDuckGo. If the search engine’s prominence is found to be anti-competitive, it would be hard to come up with a solution that companies would want to fairly implement. All other potential changes from the case probably won’t be noticed by consumers.

Future of Google

Sundar Pichai noted that the future of Google lies in AI in his 25 years of Google reflection. That isn’t to say that search won’t be a major part of Google’s future, AI-powered search is already being tested on Google. If decisions made by the U.S. prevent Google from growing in the AI space as fast as it can now, it could slow down worldwide development. Restructuring Google’s search business model could also give us a far less search-focused Google.

Conclusions

It’s likely that there is going to be some kind of regulation put on Google. I am hopeful that whatever it is, it does not interfere heavily with Google’s AI progress and does not negatively impact the consumers' experience when using their preferred search engine.