What's Google Without Chrome?
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Hello, yeah, I feel like we were just talking about this google lawsuit. Yeah, not too terribly long ago. And back .

we are back.

I called up leon nyland and anti trust reporter for bloomberg news early thursday morning. How late are you up last night? You know.

probably like one a clock in the morning. What you know when it's like punch time for nerds, you just got ta do IT.

So I last spoke to lia in August when a federal judge determined that google was a monopoly. Since then, the department of justice has been crafting a list of recommendations for what should happen to break google stronghold on the surge industry. And then around midnight the D O J released its recommendations.

There's a few things in the D O J wish list, but the big one is for the judge overseeing case. Judge omit meta to make google sell its web browser, chrome. How bad is this for google? I mean, the federal judge is gonna have a final say in all of this. But if judge meta accepts these recommendations, is this the worst case scenario for google?

Is that the worst case scenario that would probably be like dismantling the company entirely. But this is certainly bad crime is a very important part of the google empire is the way a lot of people get to their website and gives them a lot of information when you um are using crime and you're a logged in users specifically, IT gives them a lot of data about where you go on the web, what you're looking at.

And the company uses that to help target ads. And sing is of course its mean business. So this a could break a lot of the tools that google has internally for how IT sells ads.

It's looking like dark skies ahead for google, but there is one big unknown, the incoming trump administration trump .

contra venture to anything. But the states have joined down to this. A lot of those are democratic ages. And then they could keep pushing for the proposal that the by administration has made. IT could get messy if the trump administration decides to propose something else.

Today on the show, the D O, J has weight in. Now what does the future hold for google? I'm shame a rah filling in for liza, and you're listening to what next? T, V, D, A show about technology, power and how the future will be. Stick around.

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I want to set the stage for how big this is for google. How popular is chrome among all of the browsers out there?

So crime is the most used brazen the world um in the united states, IT is thought to have a market chair between sixty and seventy five percent depending on whether you're talking about at the stopper mobile. But IT is certainly the most dominant browser er out there. After that you get to microsoft edge, which only has about maybe like a ten percent share and then safari, which a lot of people primary allegation is .

on their iphone. Since chrome was created back in two thousand and eight, it's been the driving force behind the advantages that judge meta said google has in the search engine marketplace. Now IT may seem like a free browser would not be that important to google's business model, but lea says chrome is like a gateway that most people pass through to get onto the internet.

IT was sort of finding at the very towards of the beginning of the case, the judge ask a question that is sort of appreciate now in this discussion, he said, I needed you to explain to me the difference between the search, changing and brother, because today we sort of think of them as synonymous. You can go to the top and you just type stuff in I didn't know we used to be that way and um you know a lot of people don't even think about when they're typing in that querrey at the top that is going to google.

They just like you know that that gives them an answer and then they can continue on their way if somebody else were able to control that, if they were able to send IT to a different search engine or a different technology entirely, say instead of um you know typing in a search query, um you like give you a natural language question and IT goes to OpenAI and IT gives you a natural language response. I mean, this could completely change how we are thinking about accessing the internet. Someone just describe IT to me as this is the opening shot in browser wars three point now.

So IT sounds like losing chrome would have a huge impact on the company.

I think IT probably would. I mean, google has pushed back on this a little bit. They've pointed out that like technically, chrome is a free product, right? They don't charge anything for IT.

They give away a version of IT am open source. So a lot of other browsers, even a microsoft edge, is also based on the open source chromium as it's called. But I mean, the browser hasn't significantly changed since early. You know what do we call them early ots, um if somebody else controlled crown, we might see some some significant changes in technology.

The selling off of chrome is in the only thing the D O J recommended. They also recommended that google should be required to license both its underlying click and query data as well as its search results to potential rivals. Why is that something that they're going after? Why is that important?

Yeah, this is sort of the boring stuff that's very important. And so the click inquiry ah information is actually all the data that underlies how google and determines its search results. This is like what you are putting into the search engine, the results that are coming back, what you are clicking on um and this is really important information because IT helps search engines determine um the right results and sort of sea trends over time.

This is something the judge found google has a clear rer advantage because IT at sixteen times as much data as the next search engine or soft space. So making google share that is going to uh you know rapidly improve other search engine. Same with this idea of syndicating search results.

So what that means is um google will be selling access to its search results, not necessarily all of the underlying data, but also just like sort of what people are searching, what the results that I would put forth are. And that would allow not just other search engines but also people who are interested in A I A lot of data that they can use to build other products. You know, A I is built fundamentally on scraping the web, but that's a really expensive proposition. And so a lot of people don't do IT also because like websites don't like you to access their website hundreds of two times a day, IT costs them a lot of money. So now people will have this already source of information from google that they can use to like build these sort of things.

What is google said about all of this?

Well, google not to get really happy. As you can imagine. They say that this um is completely all of this is completely beside the point.

The the case was fundamentally about google's contracts to web browsers and smart phone manufacturer to make its surge engine the default and they say that the remedy should focus on those contracts. So okay, the judge had a problem with them paying to be the exclusive. They can you know no longer require that they be exclusive.

They could be like, okay, apple, we are going to allow you to use other search engine. We'll just pay you for the traffic that you send us um and they think that that is probably um more a Better result um for what the judge found was problematic. Uh, they are going to get a chance uh, next month to file a full brief on what they think the proposed reality should be.

And any responses to the justice department, I would just say the justice department thinks that sort of having that tiny remedy is not going to be good, ugh. Because google a the judge found, has been a monopoly for a long time. And you can just like make minor changes, tell um you a dominant company, which just go forth and then no more you have to fix um you know what was wrong. They often say, you know like if it's fruit from the poison on tree, you can't just get rid of the apple so you ve got a sort of output the tree.

When we come back, will Donald trump save google?

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The D O, J wants google and chrome to separate, but it's still a little unclear what that would look like from a practical standpoint.

A lot of people have been like pondering over the past couple days like a some people think that chrome isn't that useful without a lot of the data that underlies IT. So you know like people log in to chrome, I E, google. And that's why people like IT because you know they can pretty easily get to their gmail, their calendar, maybe like see on google maps, the italian restaurant they went to last week.

Um and so if chrome doesn't come with the the data people think might be a little less valuable. But on the other hand, as I was mentioning before, IT is sort of an important gateway to the internet. So this is already installed on you know sixty to seventy five percent of people's computers. So if you know you control that, you certainly are controlling the way a lot of people are accessing the online world.

According to lis reporting, chrome is worth roughly twenty billion dollars. That's a hefty Price tag for a free browser. But for some companies, owning the door to the internet would be a massive boon for their business.

Obviously, the first two people that are through one another, microsoft and apple, know those raise their own any trust concern. So i'm not sure that either of them would actually make a bed. The most interesting ones to me are some of the A I startups like may be OpenAI or perplexity AI, which is this other AI that has been trying to to do a lot of interesting self with news, would be interested in buying IT um maybe another arrival search engine like doctor go or a coja would be interested in buying IT perhaps even like an investment firm or a private individual would be interested in buying and just a sort of experiment with a technology. I mean, twenty million dollars is only half of what you .

on musk twitter for. The D O, J has also accused google of holding a monopoly on the advertising software that sticks ads on web pages. Does what's happening in this case impact that one mean? After all, if chrome is the door into the google egos, do I imagine that losing IT would impact google add business?

That's uh definitely true. So that is a separate case um that involves uh what we call the ad tech kye ecosystem. It's is all the plummers that sort of makes ads appear on the internet. That case we have closing arguments next week, and the judge says that he will have a decision by the end of the year, but we still don't know how it's going to turn out. However, yes, sAiling chrome would definitely impact that because as I mentioned, you know, IT gives the information that google uses to place a lot of these ads. The interesting thing is, if judge meter in this case doesn't go for a chrome sale, and there are a lot of people who think he might not, the justice department might have a chance to to try again with this other judge, a judge bringham in Virginia, because chrome is also pretty important in that case. And so if that doesn't go for a, maybe bring out well.

the D O J also recommended placing limits on google with regards to AI. Google has integrated its chat pot gami into search, and they've made sizable investments into the startup anthropic. If the limits are approved, what does that mean for the company's A I ambitions?

Yeah they will probably definitely have to scale them back. Um in the remedy um that came out last night, the justice department said that they want to bar google from um investing in or buying out right any start upset have to do with um text based A I and so that would certainly apply to their anthropic deal which is not good news for anthropic or anybody else who is hoping to be back by google.

They also propose a couple other um changes to how google has been doing A I so for a long time the way that google scrape the web was IT just had one crawler and IT would go through the web and IT would like look at all your content for a search and IT would also sort of take that content and put IT into the sort of fundamental underlying model that uses for A I eventually a little bit ago, google separated those so that you can say, okay, I want to to appear in search results but don't use my content for AI. But they haven't allowed companies to opt out of some features in search that they really hate, which is at the A I overview, is that now sometimes appear top of the page. So if you've googled for something and then obvious ously, you see this big box that shows up in IT summarizes what has appeared on a website.

Website publishers actually really hate that because so often people are looking at that and not clicking through to their website. And so if they don't click through, the website doesn't get the money. And so they have really wanted to opt out of these AI overviews, but you can't because google considers that a part of search. So um the justice department said that they should give website publishers more tools to be able to opt out of A I if they want to lake this in the justice experiments for you in a sort of google taking people's content for free.

The last part of all is that I wanted to touch on is that the D O J also seem to want to call for a device, sure of the android smart bone Operating system, but they ultimately stopped short. Why didn't they go that bridge far?

yeah. So they say in the filing that they were initially interested in IT, but they expected google and a lot of other companies to oppose that. So they're not going to go for that right now.

Um android is uh you know powers more than half of the phones in the world. IT is a technical a open solar software system that know companies like samsung and HTC use on their smart phones. And those are some of the companies that the justice department was pretty sure we're going to oppose having to sell this off.

Um so they sort of said we want to keep this as an option if down the road, some of our other proposals for how to restore competition or not working. So if IT turns out that all of these ideas we have about you know data sharing and h the chrome devisers aren't working, we want to reserve this option to seek an android divestiture. The google play store is the APP on the android system that allows you to access apps.

Um epic games, which makes fortnight, had sued google over that, saying that google essentially uses the place store to monopolize android. And a jury found that that was true. A judge recently ordered that google has to open up the place store that I can no longer charge developers as much money as I does for access um to android and that um IT has to allow um out of alternative APP stores for the next couple years.

Google is appealing that finding. But you know if the justice department were to seek a devastator of android right now, that would sort of throw a ranch in this other case, in this this other proposal that's going on. And so I think that was partially why they they decided to sort of hold off on seeking A A vesture of android for right now.

Okay, so the D, O, J omitted this proposal. What happens next?

yes. So next, immediately we get google's response and then the trump administration comes in and in march they will get an opportunity to tell the judge of they think that there are any changes to this proposal that they want to make.

So in march for sea, sort of if the the trump, uh, justice department wants to take the same approach or if they might want something either bigger or smaller, then in April, uh, judge meta has said he wants to hold a trial on this. We're not exactly sure how that's gonna. He scheduled two weeks for IT. There will be witness testimony. I'm talking about some of these proposals, expert testimony, you know like computer scientists talking about how this would work and then the judge said has said that he will have a final decision by no later than August of twenty twenty five.

But the elephant in the room is still the incoming trump administration. While the first trump administration brought this case against google in the first place, trump himself has recently shown some skepticism around the idea that the company should be broken. And at this point, it's anybody's guess .

he is not a fan of google. He has um criticize them in particular for centering conservative voices. There is no actual evidence that they sense our conservative voices, but conservatives believe they do.

Um we did ask cam. There was an interview in which bloomberg dead with Donald trump in the campaign, and we did ask the question about what he might do with google. He sort of damage, he said he's not sure of a break up is the right option, but he does think we need to do something. So I think that, that is a pretty good indication that you know his administration would probably want to continue either with the the proposal that the biden folks have outlined or maybe something stronger in general.

The by administration has gone pretty hard on anti trust. But with this incoming administration, do you think we could see a shift and anti trust enforcement.

I think we will probably see a shift, but I suspect is not going to be as much as some republicans think. Um you know well, street was particularly happy with the trump l election because they saw as a return to deal making traditionally republicans are a little bit easier on deals and people likely micon and ona's canter where but I think they're forgetting that the trumpet administration was actually a lot harder on anti trust than previous republican administrations.

This was not like, uh, as business friendly as some previous ones you know they were the the administration that chAllenged aten's attempt to buy time Warner. IT was unsuccessful but IT was a very um a bold case and they brought a bunch of others. So the trump fox are actually much more into anti trust and enforcing the anti trust laws pretty vigorously than previous republicans.

Leon island, thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks so much .

for having me. Leon island is .

a reporter at bloomberg news covering anti trust, and that's IT for our show today. What next? T V, T is produced by evan cambell and Patrick ford. Our show is edited by page osberne. Alesha gamy is vice president of audio for slate and tb d is part of the larger what next family.

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