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  • More information on the specific remedies in the USDOJ announcement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-wins-signi...

    Sounds like it's not nothing, but also not much.

    by bunderbunder
  • While I lament another monopolistic tech giant yet again dodging the most meaningful regulatory consequences of their actions, the more useful meta-question is how these behomoths are now so reliably skirting major enforcement like break-ups. It's not that judges have gone soft or just that the current admin is nerfing enforcement (though they are), this trend goes back much further.

    The biggest factor is that tech giants now 'pre-game' major anti-trust relevant actions through an internal compliance team staffed by former regulators. The result is the slam dunk smoking guns of 20 years ago are rare. Today's monopolists artfully push right up to the line between "red-handed" and "arguable". Then take measures to fuzz that line and kick up clouds of plausible deniability in the record. Imagine how hard it would be to convict an embezzler who was carefully coached during the crime by expert former prosecutors and forensic accountants.

    by mrandish
  • That "Lake America" is doing a hell of a lot of work for Google
    by jordanb
  • > its ad tech business

    now there's the euphemism of the day. Alphabet derives 75% of their revenue from Ads. It is their business.

    by andsoitis
  • They lost in court, and were found to be a Monopoly. The solution is they tell the court, "sorry we will stop abusing our behaviour now", and then it's just all good?
    by crowcroft
  • We should just progressively tax monopolies. Companies will break themselves up to compete, no decade long DOJ case needed.
    by siliconc0w
  • > Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about"

    Can someone closer to GOOG explain this? The phrase "ad tech" seems to have a very specific meaning here. Does this 1% include all advertising around the Web? Basically all ad revenue outside of Google's own properties? The number is surprisingly low.

    by xp84
  • Slightly tangential thought:

    My belief is: legislation needs to either make it just as hard to merge two companies as it is to unmerge them, or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them.

    It's insane to me that for how often companies merge and cause competition issues, we effectively never see the opposite happen. I know there's a ceremonial approval for merging two companies (at least in the US), but it's just impossible to undo or prevent the damage.

    by xahrepap

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Google avoids a breakup of its ad tech business · Birbla