The money is nbd, but it's much more important to Google (same as it would be for any of the other tech giants) to keep a certain streak going - 42 years now and counting since the government forced a large or important company to do anything even resembling breaking up. A loss here would serve as precedent (either legally, or at minimum in people's emotions) that you CAN force a divestiture. If Google can be forced to divest this business, why not Chrome, YouTube, or Android? Why can't Apple be forced to divest the App Store business, or Amazon be forced to divest AWS?
I won’t lie, I asked Copilot (of all things) first, in order to be more confident I wasn’t forgetting even one breakup, and it also pointed out that “almost” one.
Hot take? But I think antitrust trials should not he subject to settlement. It only proves to reinforce the accusations when a company is big enough to pay off the government.
The money is nbd, but it's much more important to Google (same as it would be for any of the other tech giants) to keep a certain streak going - 42 years now and counting since the government forced a large or important company to do anything even resembling breaking up. A loss here would serve as precedent (either legally, or at minimum in people's emotions) that you CAN force a divestiture. If Google can be forced to divest this business, why not Chrome, YouTube, or Android? Why can't Apple be forced to divest the App Store business, or Amazon be forced to divest AWS?
Microsoft got pretty close to getting broken up in 2000, but settled in time to avoid the split
I won’t lie, I asked Copilot (of all things) first, in order to be more confident I wasn’t forgetting even one breakup, and it also pointed out that “almost” one.
It was GW Bush winning the election that allowed Microsoft to a settlement.
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Hot take? But I think antitrust trials should not he subject to settlement. It only proves to reinforce the accusations when a company is big enough to pay off the government.
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Great question. The adtech is what rigs the auctions for their moneymaker, the ads.
If they no longer own the adtech then their ad revenue suffers greatly.