There’s no way the US Government is going to kick away the foundations of Google, its most innovative company. That’s what the naysayers claimed. Only then, it did.
Suddenly, shadowy academics with opaque funding were all over the web penning opinions about why this would be a disaster for America.
Then there was a wave of op eds from pseudo-economic groups purporting the same views.
It smelt fishier than Billingsgate fish market. Or as my dad would say: Google’s pulling more strings than the London Symphony Orchestra son…
He was very wise.
I pinged several of them on LinkedIn, and at their universities, to ask who was funding their work, and the silence was deafening. Only one responded with a denial.
But none of these backroom shenanigans from the dog-eared Big Tech playbook have worked - at least not so far.
The Department of Justice, even with all the new faces brought in by the Trump White House, is pushing on with demanding a break-up.
It’s beginning to look like the first age of the world wide web is coming to an end.
The Chrome browser, the front door to the web for two thirds of the world’s users, is being sold off.
The mobile web will change forever when the $26 billion backroom deal between Apple and Google to control access for iPhone and Android users is torn up.
The future of AI is being redrawn as Google is forced to do deals with publishers and content creators if they want to use their output to train Gemini.
Nearly half a trillion dollars in advertising is being shaken up as Google is forced to share its internal data on ad performance with rivals, and
The secret sauce that enabled Google’s search engine to grow to become the most used product in human history is being released to everyone and anyone.
It’s big change for Big Tech, and all designed to level what’s become a very uneven playing field for two decades, and usher in a new era for the web.
In this latest live edition of Scotch and Watch (me with a scotch on Friday night in Sydney and Chris in London with a cup of tea) we discuss what this means.
Why does America feel the need to break up its search posterchild?
Is this an early salvo in a proxy war with China over AI supremacy?
Why is it getting so little coverage in the major media yet?
What will it mean for AI and future publisher rights deals?
Where will the $350 billion in ads Google banks go now?
What about the 14 billion searches on Google every day?
And is this the end of the www, for new nationalist webs instead?
Grab a drink and join in…
And Chris and I will be back for another episode later this week: Friday 7pm Sydney time, 8am Friday in London. Hope to see you there…
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