DoJ targets Google's AI as it winds up break-up demands

#319: Regulators urge the judge to ban Google from using its cash to buy scale for Gemini, forcing it to earn its default position...

The US Government just concluded issuing its demands for the break-up of Google’s search monopoly in a Washington court, and it couldn’t have been clearer.

It wants Chrome sold, the secrets of how Google search works made public, and an end to its $26 billion backhanders to Apple and others to own mobile.

Then, just as it wrapped up, the Department of Justice threw in AI, insisting that Google is also limited from throwing its ill-gotten cash around to scale Gemini.

The DoJ chief who brought the case had warned this was coming in a TV interview last week. Jonathan Kanter said:

“The remedies in this case are going to be forward looking.

“They’re not going to deal with the market as it was when the case was filed, it’s going to deal with the market as it exists today and will exist in the future.

“That means the infrastructure for selling advertising against AI is going to be highly relevant.

“Hopefully we’ll create opportunities for new businesses, new technologies and new innovations to monetise AI through advertising other than Google.”

Ouch.

And this is only round one.

Google has also been found by courts to have monopolised ad tech, and in just two days, another court will begin hearing how to break that up too.

It wants it forced to let go of Google Ad Manager (GAM) and its AdX exchange, among a slew of other controls and meaty guardrails.

It’s all change then. And the dawn of the Oh Shit era. So, what do we do now?

Google’s reeling, publishers too, and the ad market is planning for wholesale change, as my mates at Mi3 reported in a great scoop this morning.

Chris Duncan

and I also smashed through it on Friday night’s Scotch and Watch live.

But this is it. This is the change that publishing and advertising have barely dared to dream of for more than a decade. Now it’s on. What shall we do next?

Before I get into the latest evidence, welcome to new subs from the data team at Yahoo News (hey 👋 let’s buy Chrome together, I have an idea 💭 🚀), Conde Nast in New York, The Associated Press in Maryland, workplace culture crew Human Leaders, Australian broadcaster SBS, the National University of Singapore, Mamamia in Sydney, among others.

And OneFootball, the media company co-owned by AC Milan, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Juventus, Liverpool, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid. Game on indeed… ⚽

And, come join me and superstar designers Canva and Flourish for a free three-hour session to explore the future of visual storytelling in New York next month.

OK, let’s go. Hey ho, the Google witch is dead…