The government’s plan to break up Google

Metavives November 22, 2024

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

For two decades, Google Search has been unstoppable. Invincible. So thoroughly dominant that would-be competitors often couldn’t even get funding, because investors didn’t see the point in trying. But earlier this year, a judge declared that Google’s power, and the way the company wields it, was an illegal monopoly. And so now the US Department of Justice has to figure out how to undo it.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we dig into the DOJ’s first attempt at a plan. The Verge’s Lauren Feiner joins the show to talk through the recently filed proposal, which includes selling Chrome, possibly selling Android, and requiring Google to give vast quantities of its search tech and data to anyone wanting to compete.

We try to figure out whether any of these proposals are likely to come to pass — there’s still a lot of legal process left before anything here is final — and what it would mean for Google, and the internet, if they did. We also try to guess what the incoming Trump administration might think about all this, and how the case could change in the next few months.

After that, we talk about some other news in Big Tech. Amazon’s fancy new Alexa doesn’t appear to be going well, but the company does seem to have a plan to at least make some things work a little better — without needing much AI at all. Google might be bailing on tablets again, and Sonos’s TV plans are becoming a little clearer. Plus, cheap streaming Windows PCs!

Finally, in the lightning round, we talk SpinCo, Brendan Carr, Strava, Musk vs. OpenAI, and what’s new with Bluesky and Threads. A little competition in social networks has been a good thing these last few weeks.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Google and the DOJ:

And in AI and gadget news:

And in the lightning round: