What Will Happen to Google After the Antitrust Ruling?

Google Search is considered the largest company in the technological industry. It allows Alphabet, the mother company of Google, to generate more benefits than any other American company, notably Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Berkshire Hathaway.

Following the decision of the judge Amit P. Mehta Tuesday in an antitrust trial, Google is positioned to maintain this company largely without interruption.

The giant of Silicon Valley, who was noted in a test last year having abused a monopoly on the research industry, must only make modest modifications to correct his behavior. Under the decision of judge Mehta, he will have to share more of his data with the competitors and create a supervisory committee to monitor his business practices. But he can pursue many operations that the government has challenged in the trial, including its payments to Apple to automatically manage research requests and its control over the Chrome browser.

Google’s action has jumped more than 8% in trade after opening hours, while investors celebrated the decision.

Here is a more in -depth examination of what the decision means for Google’s activities, if confirmed after what should be a long call process.

Google should only share certain data.

Under the decision of judge Mehta, Google is required to present certain research results to rival companies. The sharing of his data, which was the backbone of his search engine, could help Microsoft, Openai, Perplexity and others to improve their research products.

Throughout the test, this data was described as “oxygen” for search engines. Google has collected large amounts of data over the years from research – nine times all its combined competitors – and analyzed it to ensure that the company offers users better answers than anyone. It was a key to the domination of Google.

Justice Mehta said that sharing a close quantity of research data would help competitors improve their research systems. Data will help competitors to identify and crawl more websites, so that they can provide better results to search for requests.

But Google has avoided having to share some of its most important data. Justice Mehta refused the government’s request that Google is required to share all of its research index, a database that helps users quickly reach the information they are looking for. He also denied a request that Google shares a database containing information on people, places and things that can be used to help with precision research.

It is difficult to know how Microsoft, Openai and others will benefit, said Jim Jansen, the main scientist of the artificial intelligence group of the Qatar IT research institute and former professor at the Pennsylvania State University. A decade ago, he said, the data would have been much more precious, but today, Google collects so much information that “a large part of the data is noise”.

It will also be complicated for Google and the court to manage the data it shares, said Mr. Jansen. Users agree to share their data with Google, not a third party, when they do research.

“This is an administrative nightmare, with all kinds of confidentiality problems,” said Jansen.

Google must adapt to a Microsoft style committee.

Judge Mehta asked on Tuesday that Google created an antitrust technical committee. The group of five, who will include experts in a privacy, will be responsible for ensuring that Google complies with the court decision. It would guarantee that the company shared the appropriate data with competitors, while protecting the confidentiality of users.

The committee echoes Microsoft had to do after losing its antitrust case a quarter of a century ago. At the time, Microsoft agreed to establish an internal antitrust technical committee and a compliance program. The group examined Windows and other products before their release to ensure that Microsoft was following the law. The Court and the Company allocated Microsoft’s behavior change to the committee.

But pay to play continues.

When the Ministry of Justice filed his antitrust file against Google in 2020, he targeted not only Google but Apple.

Google paid Apple about $ 20 billion a year to manage research requests on iPhones. Each research has helped Google earn more advertising money than its competitors and gave it more data to improve its ability to make it possible. He also gave billions of Apple reasons not to develop his own search engine.

In his decision on Tuesday, judge Mehta recognized the justification of the government for asking the court to end these payments. But he decided to allow them because he feared that a restriction is bad for consumers. A ban could force smartphones and navigators like Apple and Firefox to increase prices to compensate for the lost sales of Google or choose a worse search engine for less money, he said.

Apple also retains its profits.

Payments of around $ 20 billion from Google to be the automatic iPhones search engine was a major windfall for Apple. If Apple had been prevented from taking these payments, as the Ministry of Justice requested, the company’s annual profit would have been reduced by 15%, estimated Wall Street analysts.

When Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of the services, took a stand in the Google case in May, he argued that the progress of artificial intelligence has shown that Google’s antitrust threat is shrinking. He warned that punishing Google by blocking payments to Apple and others “seem just crazy”.

Justice Mehta accepted on Tuesday. In doing so, he saved Apple from a major change to his business. The shareholders responded by sending Apple shares of more than 3% in exchanges after opening hours.

And Chrome dodged a ball.

Judge Mehta refused the Ministry of Justice’s request to force Google to sell his Chrome browser. He said that if the Chrome browser “undoubtedly” contributed to the domination of Google’s search, the forced sale of the browser was “a bad adjustment for this case”.

Artificial intelligence shows that the browser could be a new type of operating system for the web, with the possibility not only to search for information but also to work for users. A new browser called DIA, which is fueled by AI, sums up rupture press articles, suggests websites to visit and write video summary.

With its share of 50% of the browser market in the United States, Google is positioned to take advantage of the new AI uses for Chrome to answer purchase requests and answer questions. He will not have to watch Openai, Microsoft and others compete to define this experience without him.