Google antitrust trial

[Chris FOM]

Google’s backroom deals may have been there, but they were in service of protecting a market position that Apple has already prevailed in defending (although with two key distinctions: first and potentially legally important, Apple makes the OS AND the hardware while Google is OS only, and second which is both practical and probably the deciding factor, Apple prevailed in a bench trial while Google lost to a jury). Those distinctions aside, these two decisions are well-nigh impossible to reconcile into a legally coherent outcome to guide future decisions. That Apple has already won both at the district level and on appeal (a fact that was apparently forbidden to be mentioned during Google’s trial) makes me think this one is likely to be overturned.

 

[Chris FOM]

I think an interesting potential remedy would to be to allow Apple and others to sell the query flow to trustworthy search companies (Google, Bing et al). This would allow them to recoup some of the money lost from ending the Google deal and allow new search engines to improve even if they're not the default.

I really like that idea as a potential. That was one of the questions I was turning over in my own mind as I read about this ruling: assuming it holds on appeal what damages would be available that would actually penalize Google? If the result is Google no longer pays Apple for default placement, Apple puts up a browser ballot-style selection sheet to pick your preferred search engine, and 90% of people pick Google anyway (which, let’s be honest, is the most likely outcome) then the end result is to cost Apple a lot of money without actually influencing Google’s monopoly. I couldn’t care less about Apple losing the money, but Apple ending up the loser when they weren’t even on trial doesn’t seem particularly reasonable. But selling [properly anonymized] query flows would sidestep that quite nicely.

Either way, there’s no way this trial doesn’t dramatically change Apple and Google’s relationship and what Google pays Apple going forward. Even assuming some degree of hyperbole, when Eddie Cue/Apple’s position is there’s ”no price that Microsoft could ever offer us to preload Bing,” then Google has been spending an enormous amount of money to get Apple to do what they were already going to do anyway. Aside: how about some appreciation for Cue getting Google to believe Bing was in legit consideration and getting them to pay $20 billion when they were only bidding against themselves, that’s one impressive poker face. But now that the truth is out there’s no way Google would continue to spend that much, so Apple’s gonna need (ha! the last thing Apple needs is more money) want to replace it somehow.

Of course the reality is all this is happening when generative AI is about to hugely reduce the demand for search at all, so in just a few years it’ll all be academic anyway.