Is this what you call punishment?

Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for is here. The judge announced his punishment for Google.

The excitement was felt in the air. What is it going to be? Is the judge going to order the break up of Google? Is there going to be a bidding war for Chrome and/or Android? Or at least will the tar and feathers be involved, with the whole Google executive suite dragged through Silicon Valley?

Nope. The outcome is not even a slap on the wrist. 6 years of effort turns into nothing.

While you might enjoy reading the full document, here are the main points.

Let's start with what Google will have to do:

• Google will be barred from entering or maintaining any exclusive contract relating to the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app.

• Google will have to make available to Qualified Competitors certain search index and user-interaction data, though not ads data, as such sharing will deny Google the fruits of its exclusionary acts and promote competition.

• Google shall offer Qualified Competitors search and search text ads syndication services to enable those firms to deliver high-quality search results and ads to compete with Google while they develop their own search technologies and capacity.

• Google will be compelled to publicly disclose material changes it makes to its ad auctions to promote greater transparency in search text ads pricing.

And this is the list of what Google doesn't have to do.

• Google will not be required to divest Chrome or if Google fails to behave, to sell Android OS.

• Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products.

• Google will not have to present users with choice screens on its products or encourage its Android distribution partners to do the same.

• Google will not be required to share granular, query-level data with advertisers or provide them with more access to such data.

• Google will not have to underwrite a nationwide public education campaign.

• Google will not have to modify its policies to offer website publishers more choice in how Google uses their content.

• Google will not be subject to an investment reporting requirement.

• Google will not be subject to anti-retaliation, anti-circumvention, or self-preferencing provisions.

In other words not only is there no punishment, there is almost no change required on Google's part.

As a side note, do you remember that in 2014 the European Union tried to break up Google too? Anyway.

Google will still be allowed to have an agreement with Apple about being the search engine of choice, except it won't be exclusive and Apple will be able to choose others. That contract is worth about $20 billion. Try to describe the situation under which Apple would bring another party to the table. The only scenario I can see is if any government would try to compel Apple to champion a local company to promote local business or better control the search result.

The underlying search, advertising, browser and OS infrastructure remains untouched and completely shielded. Google will still be allowed to harvest any and all data.

The only thing which Google is asked to do is to share access to its search infrastructure. Even in this case, the judge put in place several constraints. First of all the entity will have to be a ‘Qualified Competitor’ as requested by the Plaintiff. Here the judge changed the original definition by the plaintiff to: “‘Competitor’ means any provider of, or potential entrant in the provision of, a General Search Engine (GSE) or of Search Text Ads in the United States, or a GenAI Product in the United States.” and “... for a ‘Competitor’ to become a ‘Qualified Competitor,’ it would have to demonstrate to Plaintiffs and the Technical Committee that it has ‘a plan to invest and compete in [or with] the GSE and/or Search Text Ads markets . . . .’”

Goes without saying that the 'Qualified Competitor' will have to enter a commercial relationship with Google and, as demanded by the plaintiff, that the 'Qualified Competitor' “... does not pose a risk to the national security of the United States.” Do let me know if you know a company like that.

There was another interesting point the judge made. Here is the direct quote: “The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case. No witness at the liability trial testified that GenAI products posed a near-term threat to GSEs. The very first witness at the remedies hearing, by contrast, placed GenAI front and center as a nascent competitive threat.”

In my opinion this underlines the issue which culminated with this case.

The DoJ filed the complaint against Google in 2020. Yours truly at that time wrote (can you believe it that I started writing that long ago!!)  'DOJ is going after Google… For all the wrong reasons.' How long does it take for the situation to get so bad, that prosecutors take a note of it and start building a case? 2 or 3 years? Let's say that in 2017 somebody decided that enough is enough and we have to do something about Google. In the mentioned post, I wrote “Market dominance by itself isn’t the issue. The problem is that through market dominance, these organizations are in a unique position to modify our behaviors and affect our beliefs. That’s the real danger.” And my argument then as it is now, is that Facebook is by several orders of magnitude worse than Google ever was.

Then in 2023 when the trial began, I wrote 'Google on trial' with the following “I don't think that the DoJ has a case here. I think that a simple question from the judge to Plaintiffs - 'What search engine did you use while putting your Complaint together?' will be enough to close this case.”

As the trial continued, I wrote 'Binging on excuses' where Microsoft conceded that despite BILLIONS of dollars invested in Bing they still couldn't build a better product. My closing remark was “The recurrent pattern? Focus on the strategy. Define what winning looks like, where your market is and how to win in that market. That will help you to define the required capabilities of your product or offering; and you will know what to build. Somehow Microsoft never got that right with Bing.”

And then in 2024 came the judgement 'Google is a monopoly. Now what?' “The judge found that Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.''

In that piece, I entertained a few ideas about what the judge could do. Surprisingly and against all the odds, the judge chose my first suggestion. 'Tell Google not to be a monopoly.' The other ones were 'Forbid Google to pay Apple, Samsung, Firefox for exclusive placement of its products’, 'Force Apple, Samsung, Firefox to provide a choice when it comes to a search.' and/or 'Break up Google.'

I closed the post with “The world will move on. The search as we know it today will change.”

And don't forget that Google was also declared a monopolist in the online advertising business. That has a far more serious impact on its business. Search, browser, Android OS, YouTube and everything else is here to support the cash cow. If the cow gets sick or injured, the market will punish Google in no time.

So, here we are today. What’s the outcome? Nobody won. The DoJ lost the case. Despite its best intentions and effort, it was fighting yesterday’s battle. The consolation price is that Google was declared a monopoly. While the judge dismissed most of the requested remedies to punish Google, Google has a much bigger problem: Its own future. Yes, Google and its lawyers skillfully delayed as much as they could and emerged unscathed from the trial, but their business is threatened. Search is morphing and despite - or perhaps because of - its gigantic size, Google is feverishly trying to pivot to keep the users coming. The customer lost. Anyone who would like to get correct and quality answers from search engines powered by AI is getting worse and worse service and results.

The recurrent pattern? So many!

Let me close with a post 'Building new products is difficult, even for Google' where I commended Google for trying to get new things off the ground. I wrote it in 2022 and at that time, there was a list of 270 projects which Google started and eventually killed.

“Google is working extremely hard to stay current and compete on many fronts. For that it has to keep trying and trying and trying to come up with new ideas, test them and either use them or discard them. Either way, there is always a lesson learned. This should be a recurrent pattern for any company - you have to try and try and try new things. Without that you are done and there will be no recurrent pattern for you in the future.

Google’s downfall won't be the result of lawsuits; It will be its inability to innovate.