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It’s about time. Google needs to be broken up into at least 5 different companies, two search engines, two YouTubes and Android.

The govt should also require diversity of thought within the management team of each new entity; that way we don’t see any misuse of corporate assets to illegally further political objectives.
True. They could enforce that with a new force of Thought Police.

/sarcasm
 
Shockwave was the software from Macromedia; who also created Freehand which was a direct competitor to Adobe Illustrator (and better in my opinion). When Adobe bought Macromedia, they only really kept Shockwave and rebranded it to Flash.
Yep, Macromedia was amazing. Shockwave was a separate plugin and always had more features (content was created in Director), but Flash (also by Macromedia) won amongst the Adobe/marketing folks. Was very disappointing to me. I did a lot of beta testing in the early/mid 90s on those products. Good old days of craziness.
 
The trick is how to even split these companies up, if it’s even possible for some of these divisions to be solvent on their own. IE, without being able to leverage ad money to prop up YouTube and Search, would Google just opt to exit the space? Not every division of a company is profitable, some are loss leaders to grow other areas.

But I suppose that’s the crux of the problem, using market dominance in one area to make headwind in another, favoring internal options over third-party.

I continue to be of the opinion that no company is guaranteed success, and monopolies aren’t inherently bad, but they do have to be regulated.

This is all very different from Microsoft in the 90s. Ecosystems are the norm now. Is it better to have a few really nice walled gardens to choose from, or no walls at all (and understand that things may not be as well integrated).

If a company creates an ecosystem, does the government have much control for the rules the company places on it? No one is forcing anyone to buy this phone or that phone, or shop on this service or that one. This isn’t like big oil or ma’bell where there are no other options in town, but people seek things that are well integrated and easy to use.
 
Alphabet (Google) has much more than a search engine behind its monopoly.

They are also the #1 for web advertising and buy up competitors just to stay on top. The digital advertising market is probably as strong of a case as the web engine. Years ago, I had an AdMob account that brought in $12k in a single month as revenue for my app. The following year Google finished the acquisition of AdMob and with the EXACT SAME clicks and view counts on my ads I got less than $500 of revenue. I was also paying for advertising at the same time and my advertiser rates did not change; only my income.

I don't have a problem with Google selling advertising to cover expenses for Search Engine including premium spot ad "rankings", but the majority of the advertising business needs to be split off into a different company.

Split into separate companies for:

Ads
YouTube
Search
Cloud Services (Mail, Docs, etc)
Android
If YouTube is split from Alphabet (Google), I'd be happy. Then I don't need the gmail email address account that I have.
 
The trick is how to even split these companies up, if it’s even possible for some of these divisions to be solvent on their own. IE, without being able to leverage ad money to prop up YouTube and Search, would Google just opt to exit the space? Not every division of a company is profitable, some are loss leaders to grow other areas.

Splitting them up would force them to compete. Would it not? If YouTube has to make money on its own, it probably could.

What I wonder is how much funds get shuffled about for tax reasons.
 
There are other search engines (like Duck Duck Go and Bing), so I'm not sure if the DOJ has a strong case. Google is certainly the most-used search engine, but it's not as dominant as IE was back in the 90s. Most people might leave Google as the default on iPhones, but they aren't forced to.
Actually it’s worse. At its peak, it’s estimated that I.E. had roughly 70% market share. Very dominant.

Earlier this year, Google had nearly 89% search market share. That’s insane.

This can be fixed by Apple not accepting an estimated 7 billion dollars to make Google the default and when setting up a new phone, provide users with multiple providers and Let them pick.
 
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This kind of thing only happens when you have almost no competition in the marketplace anymore. RIP BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Symbian, Danger...

It's literally Google vs. Apple, Android vs. iOS. With such little competition these days, it's no wonder all devices and OSs look almost the same.
Yeah well Microsoft had it's time (and kinda still does) when Windows was nearly the only OS being used. That's world domination that the world doesn't need. To be literally forced to use Windows in order to do any real work was just sickening. And Microsoft still has monopoly in terms of Office 365, since it's the only office suite used in corporations. This happens when there's no competition and when it comes to an office suite it should've been many options that took some of the dominance from Microsoft but none of them could. So I for one am glad Apple and Google took dominance in the cellular world. Microsoft doesn't need to dominate and monopolize everything.
 
Earlier this year, Google had nearly 89% search market share. That’s insane.

This can be fixed by Apple not accepting an estimated 7 billion dollars to make Google the default and when setting up a new phone, provide users with multiple providers and Let them pick.
Why am I not surprised? This article is about Google and you turned it around and placed blame towards Apple for the reason Google is dominant in Search. SMH.
 
I’m pretty sure I have a choice in search engines. If I want to use bing, I can. If I want to ask Jeeves, I can. I just happen to use Google as it works for me.
I think it’s because it is the default. The problem is that Safari is not supposed to be that popular, so why would it matter. It would seem to show that people are smart enough to choose what they want to use. They should be Paying closer attention to how they are becoming new Explorer with Chrome, by getting developers to only write for their proprietary coding and extensions instead of the standard Safari’s WebKit was trying to establish. Now like 20 years ago with Microsoft Explorer there are sites and web services that only work with Chrome. Not good at all.
 
The real red flag is wanting people with a political preference which leans only to one side to have control of something as critical as a search engine.
And the solution is what? Having government mandated FMRI scans while CEO candidates are read a list of trigger words? Nothing big brother about that, at all...

If the market doesn’t like the political leanings of their tech companies, then there’s a market for a new tech company.
 
Yeah well Microsoft had it's time (and kinda still does) when Windows was nearly the only OS being used. That's world domination that the world doesn't need. To be literally forced to use Windows in order to do any real work was just sickening. And Microsoft still has monopoly in terms of Office 365, since it's the only office suite used in corporations. This happens when there's no competition and when it comes to an office suite it should've been many options that took some of the dominance from Microsoft but none of them could. So I for one am glad Apple and Google took dominance in the cellular world. Microsoft doesn't need to dominate and monopolize everything.

So instead Google has taken the place of Microsoft and voila! Antitrust lawsuit.

Still really miss Danger, Symbian, BlackBerry, etc etc etc.
 
Google is not a monopoly

end of story

go use some ******** search engine if you don’t want to use it, it’s your choice
Your right, Google IS NOT a monopoly. Good HAS a monopoly on Search. You're telling people to go use something else? Seriously? When someone tells you to go look something up they generally say, "Google it". They don't say, "Yahoo it" or "Bing it" or "WebCrawl it". So by nature people are using Google Search more than 90% of the time.
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So instead Google has taken the place of Microsoft and voila! Antitrust lawsuit.

Still really miss Danger, Symbian, BlackBerry, etc etc etc.
It's Blackberry's fault for their own demise.
 
While it was indeed BlackBerry's fault for their own death, (not so sure about Danger, WebOS, Symbian, or Meego) the fact is there needs to be more contenders or we will never see much really happening in the future aside a few dozen more cameras that no one needs in a smartphone, and screens well into tablet category (wait, we've got that now!) as the only real innovations or changes.

I'm sick of this homogenized 'every device looks the same' crap. That's why I bought old devices that are far more fun and unique (well, to me) to use.
 
How about they do something useful and go after an actual monopoly that hurts consumers financially like the absurd cable companies that can price gouge you at will with virtually no recourse and repercussions. Get some competition going so at least there can be some creative deals and pricing in the broadband space.
 
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Long overdue. Historically, the the US gov’t was once the pioneer in anti-trust litigation, and it’s even more appropriate here with Google than earlier examples in our history.
 
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While it was indeed BlackBerry's fault for their own death, (not so sure about Danger, WebOS, Symbian, or Meego) the fact is there needs to be more contenders or we will never see much really happening in the future aside a few dozen more cameras that no one needs in a smartphone, and screens well into tablet category (wait, we've got that now!) as the only real innovations or changes.

I'm sick of this homogenized 'every device looks the same' crap. That's why I bought old devices that are far more fun and unique (well, to me) to use.
The next member after you took the words out of my mouth. I do agree with you that the world needs more competition. I'm a Comcast/Xfinity customer and for the most part they provide a good service but their costs are too high, I can't pick and choose what I want to pay for in terms of channels and I tried to buy only their internet service but Comcast said it's more expensive for me to buy their internet plan only. The next competitor near by is AT&T but they don't offer 1GB plan where I live. With only two options and Comcast dominating the Internet/TV service they are monopolizing.

With companies not trying to compete it automatically gives major companies dominance. I honestly have no idea how Google Search became so dominant. In the late 90's people used Yahoo, WebCrawler or the Search feature built into Internet Explorer or Netscape. Then years later came Google and everything else is forgotten.
 
I’m pretty sure I have a choice in search engines. If I want to use bing, I can. If I want to ask Jeeves, I can. I just happen to use Google as it works for me.

Google has engaged in extremely anti-competitive behavior to get to where it is as holding 90% of the world’s search traffic. That includes intentionally burying results that benefit competitors and illegally obtaining private personal information (so many examples but most famously in Germany).

You as a user don’t see it, but the result of these actions is that Google has cornered the market in search advertising, which means you and everyone else pays more out-of-pocket for hundreds of products and services because these inflated costs are ultimately passed down to the consumer.
 
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Google's behavior allegedly makes it harder for "innovative new companies" to "develop, compete, and discipline Google's behavior," which has had an impact on competition and consumers.

"Allegedly?"

ROFLMAO.

OF COURSE Google's behavior makes it harder - that's why Google engaged in it.
 
I honestly always found it odd that Apple puts such a large emphasis on privacy (literally creating ads saying what happens on iPhone stays on iPhone) and yet every spotlight search or Siri query you perform that it can't interpret gets sent straight to Google.
You're telling us all that for every spotlight search or Siri query you perform, that it can't interpret, if it didn't google it you wouldn't then manually google it?
 
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