🌻 E39 - Is Google breaking up into multiple parts?
Yesterday, a 286-page ruling was released that could shake up the multi-billion-dollar search industry.
Google has violated antitrust law by spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world's default search engine
Google, with its search business generating a staggering $175 billion annually, controls 90% of global search traffic—more than the GDP of some countries.
Google’s wealth primarily comes from its ad network. It controls:
80% of ad market
91% of publisher ad services
50% of ad exchanges
Surprisingly, Mozilla is funded by Google to maintain its default search engine status. Mozilla receives funding from several places, but Google remains the largest contributor.
The reason? It’s part of Google’s strategy to dodge monopoly accusations. The real surprise? Google pays $18-20 billion a year to Apple just to remain the default search engine on its devices.
Google’s dominance isn’t just confined to its platform. A whopping 95% of premium searches come from Apple devices, and this is why Google forks out billions to ensure it stays as the default search engine on iPhones and iPads. Samsung, too, benefits from this hefty payment.
Google has been prioritizing short-term ad revenue at the expense of search quality. As a result, the search experience has deteriorated, often leading users to irrelevant or less useful results.
For instance, I sometimes find myself using Google just to locate Reddit threads, rather than directly getting quality answers. This decline is particularly frustrating for users who rely on the platform for efficient and relevant search results.
The EU Antitrust regulators also running after Google for the similar charges.
Then whats next?
In 1982, the Bell System was broken up into smaller parts like AT&T, Verizon, and others. Now, there’s increasing speculation that Google (or its parent company, Alphabet) could be forced to split into divisions like Chrome, YouTube, Android, and others to avoid monopoly scrutiny.
Will this breakup happen? The next few months may offer a clearer view of how the tech giant navigates this monumental challenge.
By the way there is a comic relief, there is character called “Monopoly Man” - Read the reddit :)