Every millionth of a second and trillions of times, Google stifled competition and drained publishers’ revenue for profit, all while overcharging advertisers.
That’s the accusation from a coalition of 38 US States bringing a case in Texas seeking huge fines, but more importantly, adding to demands Google is broken up.
The allegations are outlined in a colossal 1,573-page complaint, packed with details and nuance, that’s due before a judge in March next year.
As I continue to experiment with the power of AI, I uploaded the sheaf of court documents to Google’s Notebook LM.
I then told the AI to generate a podcast, delivering a balanced opinion from the details contained within the papers.
This is what it delivered. It’s a coherent overview, explained in a mainly neutral narrative, which needed no editing or post-production from me.
But this is still evolving AI, and it’s not entirely perfect. That said, I urge you to listen and imagine whether you could use similar tech to repurpose your journalism.
After speaking with thousands of publishers over the past year, I’m convinced that AI is not about efficiency or cost saving. It’s an opportunity to re-platform news.
It’s the trigger to replace the industry’s reliance on Google search for discovery, and Google and Meta for traffic, and Google for monetisation.
Sustainable, independent media is up for grabs for the first time in a quarter century.
This is a work in progress but imagine if you turned every article into audio in real time and served them as podcasts with $90 CPM ads throughout.
Notebook LM also released an update this week enabling listeners to interact with the podcast by asking questions to redirect the conversation.
For now, let’s focus on the Texas lawsuit, which adds to a tsunami of legal woes as Google’s era as the unchallenged leader of digital ads comes to an end.
While the case mirrors much of the Department of Justice’s antitrust evidence, it shines more light in some of the darker corners of Google’s strategy.
Foremost, it flags Project Bernanke, a secret programme named after the former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, famed for unconventional monetary policy.
The States allege Bernanke was designed to boost earnings by stealing leveraging data from publisher ad servers for Google to fix auctions and bag an unfair advantage.
It claims that “hundreds of millions of dollars” were diverted to Google, in a process that critics liken to insider trading.
The State Attorneys General demand new levels of transparency across the panoply of Google ad tech to stop it being manipulated.
Also on trial is privacy and what tech companies should be allowed to do with the data they capture from us.
Google’s defence is that the allegations relate to former practices that are irrelevant now as the fast-moving ad market has adapted.
It also claims all its data sharing is legal due to rules buried deep in their data privacy terms.
Whoever wins, and whatever happens in Texas, the case will have reverberations across the world.
On trial is what’s legal and what’s ethical in a world where Big Tech’s win at all cost philosophy means kill, cash, and crush, has become business as usual.
But if it loses, the future of digital business will change for everyone.
Have a listen...
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