Sinners are grinners as judge spares monopolist Google

#374: The verdict shields its billions, validates AI content theft, and shortens the timeline to Google Zero. It's brutal as usual for publishers...

Who’d have thought it would come down to a frog and two lily pads.

Google’s boiling frog playbook crushed publishing, suffocated the open web, and bent advertising to craft an enduring multi-billion-dollar monopoly.

Now an antitrust judge says that’s barely worth a penalty because search is old tech, AI is the future - and competition has already leapt to a new lily pad.

It’s never a dull day at the DOJ, but dark humour aside, this is a brutal and deeply unfair ruling for publishing.

It’s devastating for consumers and advertisers, and it won’t inspire new rivals in search or search ads.

Instead, it entrenches trillion-dollar bagmen, shepherding them into fresh AI monopolies that will be back in court before long.

Meanwhile, consumers and advertisers will pay more, Google will keep predatory pricing, and another generation of start-ups will be starved of opportunity.

Today’s post breaks down what just happened and what it means for publishers, marketers, consumers, Big Tech, AI, growth and c…