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A judge has branded Google a monopolist, but AI may bring about quicker change in internet search

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A judge has branded Google a monopolist, but AI may bring about quicker change in internet search
News

News

A judge has branded Google a monopolist, but AI may bring about quicker change in internet search

2024-08-07 05:55 Last Updated At:06:01

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has branded Google as a ruthless monopolist bent on suffocating it competitors. But how do you go about creating alternatives to a search engine that's synonymous with internet exploration?

It's a process that may take years to unfold as Google appeals the landmark decision issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.

And with that kind of time frame looming, the forces of technological upheaval may make the exercise moot.

The rise of artificial intelligence may reshape the landscape more quickly and profoundly than any judge ever could. The way consumers navigate the internet is more likely to be affected by advances in AI products — such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's own Gemini — before a nearly 4-year-old case brought by the U.S. Justice Department is finally resolved.

Even so, Mehta's 277-page ruling Monday creates challenges for Google that company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin probably didn't envision when they set out to revolutionize internet search while attending Stanford University as graduate students. They eventually dropped out to start a Silicon Valley company in 1998 that adopted “Don't Be Evil” as a motto that also was meant to serve as its corporate conscience.

Page and Brin, who remain the controlling shareholders of Google's corporate parent Alphabet Inc., also cast their cuddly startup as a crusader for technology that would be far better than the products coming out of Microsoft, the industry's reigning kingpin at the time. Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software and anticompetitive tactics during the 1990s spurred another Justice Department case that ended up hobbling Microsoft and helped make it easier for Google to build its lead in search and then expand into maps, cloud computing, email (Gmail), web browsers (Chrome) and video (YouTube).

Now, the script has been flipped, with Google facing potential legal constraints, while a resurgent Microsoft has been making early headway in AI with a major helping hand from its investment in OpenAI. In one of the most dramatic scenarios that most experts think is unlikely to happen, Google might be forced to break up its business similar to how AT&T — once known as “Ma Bell” — ended up spinning off its telephone subsidiaries into separate “Baby Bells” more than 40 years ago.

It will be left to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who took over the company's leadership from Page in 2015, to minimize the distractions caused by the legal skirmishing still to come and remain focused on an industrywide pivot to AI technology that's expected to be as revolutionary as the mobile computing shift by Apple's introduction of the iPhone in 2007.

The debate about how Google should be overhauled will begin Sept. 6 with a hearing scheduled in Washington, D.C., before Mehta, who also presided over the 10-week trial last year that led to his antitrust decision.

Google also will be pursing an appeal, based on its long-held contention that it has done nothing wrong but build and maintain a search engine that has been far superior to anything else for more than 20 years. The Mountain View, California, company also maintains that competition is just a few clicks away, with consumers still free to go to other options, such as Microsoft's Bing, DuckDuckGo and, more recently, AI-powered alternatives such as Perplexity and ChatGPT.

Although Mehta praised the quality of Google's search engine in his ruling and acknowledged the company initially became the people's preferred choice in its early days, he concluded it resorted to unfair tactics to maintain its leadership during the past decade. Google did it, Mehta said, mainly by negotiating lucrative deals to cement a position as the default search engine on the iPhone and wide range of other devices, including PCs.

Those deals, which totaled $26 billion in 2021 alone, meant Google automatically processed search requests unless consumers took the time to manually go into their settings and choose another option — something that few do. The default option then helped Google collect valuable insights that enabled the company to improve its search engine in ways that rivals couldn't because they lacked the same data.

Default requests processed accounted for 60% of Google's search traffic in 2017, Mehta pointed out in his ruling, and that volume in turn created more opportunities to sell the ads that generate the majority of its parent company's $307 billion in annual revenue.

Mehta's focus on the default search deals in his ruling make it likely he may decide to ban them after the next trial phase is completed, according to antitrust experts. That could have implications for other companies besides Google, especially Apple, which pockets about $20 billion annually from an arrangement that is currently scheduled to continue through 2026, with options to extend the alliance into 2028.

Apple didn't respond to a request for comment about Mehta's decision, but its executives have depicted the decision to make Google the default search engine on the iPhone and other products as a convenience to its customers — most of whom prefer to use Google.

But an order preventing Apple from doing default search engine deals with Google could do more than just siphon away revenue. It might also require Apple to spend heavily to develop its own search technology — an endeavor that Google estimated would cost more than $30 billion as part of 2020 analysis that Mehta cited in his ruling. Then, it would cost Apple an additional $7 billion annually to sustain its own search engine, according to Google's analysis.

FILE - Various Google logos are displayed on a Google search, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, in New York. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, that Google's ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world's best-known companies. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - Various Google logos are displayed on a Google search, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, in New York. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, that Google's ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world's best-known companies. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - Google CEO Sundar Pichai leaves the federal courthouse in Washington during closing arguments in the antitrust case against Google on Oct. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

FILE - Google CEO Sundar Pichai leaves the federal courthouse in Washington during closing arguments in the antitrust case against Google on Oct. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

FILE - The Google sign is shown over an entrance to the company's building in New York on Sept. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

FILE - The Google sign is shown over an entrance to the company's building in New York on Sept. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

KARTALKAYA, Turkey (AP) — As flames tore through a 12-story hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkey, friends Esra Karakisa and Halime Cetin stood helpless, paralyzed by the horror unfolding before them: people leaning out of smoke-filled rooms pleading for help and others making the harrowing decision to leap out.

The fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalya, in the Koroglu mountains in Bolu province, on Tuesday left at least 76 people dead and 51 injured. It came near the start of a two-week winter break for schools when hotels in the region are filled to capacity.

“There was no one around. They were calling for firefighters. They were breaking the windows. Some could no longer stand the smoke and flames, and they jumped,” Cetin, an employee at a hotel adjacent to the Grand Kartal, told The Associated Press.

Her colleague, Karakisa said: “It was awful. We were terrified. People were screaming. The cries of children especially affected us. We wanted to help but there was nothing we could do. I couldn’t look it was so terrifying.”

Authorities have assigned six prosecutors to investigate the cause of the fire, which appeared to have started at the restaurant section on the fourth floor of of the wooden-clad hotel and spread quickly through to the upper floors.

At least nine people have been detained for questioning, including the hotel owner.

Flags at government buildings and Turkish diplomatic missions abroad were lowered to half-staff as the nation shocked by the disaster observed a day of mourning for the victims.

Only 45 of the 76 bodies have been identified so far, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said late Tuesday.

One of the injured was in serious condition, while 29 others were treated and released, the Health Ministry said.

The hotel had 238 registered guests, according to Yerlikaya. The fire was reported at 3:27 a.m. and the fire department began to respond at 4:15 a.m., he told reporters.

Officials and witnesses said the rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that part of the 161-room hotel is on the side of a cliff.

According to Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, the hotel underwent inspections in 2021 and 2024, and “no negative situation regarding fire competence” was reported by the fire department.

Karakisa said she eventually brought clothes and water for the survivors while others rushed to bring mattresses for people to jump onto or propped up ladders against the wall to help them escape.

Among those who placed mattresses was Baris Salgur, a cleaner in a nearby hotel.

“They were saying, ‘Please help, we’re burning!' They were saying, ‘Call the fire department,' we were trying to calm them down, but there was nothing we could do, we couldn’t get in either,” Salgur, 19, said. " It was very high, we couldn’t extend a rope or anything of course. We were trying to do the best we could.”

“People jumped from a great height, I couldn’t look. There were two women at the top floor. The flames had literally entered the room. They couldn’t stand it and jumped,” he said.

Salgur described seeing a man on the top floors holding a baby and shouting for a mattress he could throw his baby on.

"We told him to be a little calmer. He waited, then the fire department came and took them (out), but unfortunately the baby had died from smoke inhalation,” he said.

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Robert Badendieck in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Tightened bed sheets hang from a window of a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Tightened bed sheets hang from a window of a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A Turkish flag flag flies at half staff outside a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A Turkish flag flag flies at half staff outside a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Firefighters and emergency teams work on the aftermath of a fire that broke out at a hotel in the ski resort of Kartalkaya, located in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Firefighters and emergency teams work on the aftermath of a fire that broke out at a hotel in the ski resort of Kartalkaya, located in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in a hotel at a ski resort of Kartalkaya, located in Bolu province, in northwest Turkey, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (Enes Ozkan/IHA via AP)

Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in a hotel at a ski resort of Kartalkaya, located in Bolu province, in northwest Turkey, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (Enes Ozkan/IHA via AP)

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