Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Google China

Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China' (cnbc.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD from the pulling-the-China-card dept.
Google has argued in court that the U.S. Department of Justice's proposal to break up its Chrome and Android businesses would weaken national security and harm the country's position in the global AI race, particularly against China. CNBC reports: The remedies trial in Washington, D.C., follows a judge's ruling in August that Google has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search, the most-significant antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. The Justice Department has called for Google to divest its Chrome browser unit and open its search data to rivals.

Google said in a blog post on Monday that such a move is not in the best interest of the country as the global battle for supremacy in artificial intelligence rapidly intensifies. In the first paragraph of the post, Google named China's DeepSeek as an emerging AI competitor. The DOJ's proposal would "hamstring how we develop AI, and have a government-appointed committee regulate the design and development of our products," Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, wrote in the post. "That would hold back American innovation at a critical juncture. We're in a fiercely competitive global race with China for the next generation of technology leadership, and Google is at the forefront of American companies making scientific and technological breakthroughs."

Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China' More | Reply

Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China'

Comments Filter:

  • More like the other way round... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @06:10AM (#65322571)

    Monopolies are _always_ bad for everybody except the monopolists and anybody in league with them. But direct lies are acceptable and business as usual these days...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bjoast ( 1310293 )
      They just know which buttons to push.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Not this time, they don't.

        Like many other conversations, this unpleasantly turns to the topic of Trump. If America wanted to win a race with China (or any other foreign power) then we would not have elected Trump. Our election of Trump shows that America is committed to becoming a victim, losing out in every possible way. We want to lose dominance. That's why we went out of our way to elect such an unusually weak and anti-American president.

        Sorry, Google, but that button is no longer connected to anything.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      It does seem all rather hypocritical at this stage. But I guess that's normal too.

      Google is far from the main problem here. Selling off Android and Chrome doesn't solve any problem with the social media algorithms nor user tracking. I'd say it'll just make it all the worse. Youtube has issues but again, I don't see forcing Alphabet to sell anything as a rectification for that.

      Making even-handed laws and enforcing them is where the problems get solved.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by evanh ( 627108 )

        On the other hand, if it resulted in the complete destruction of Android, that could be a good outcome. It might give alternative types of ad channels a chance.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        The massive amount of telemetry Alphabet hovers up from Chrome and Android, are exactly the problem.

        Google search isn't magic, it isnt even better then most of its competitors from a results perspective these days, what is better at is ad revenue, because Google is better at ad targeting than anyone else (save perhaps Meta and only for certain demographics).

        Take away Google's global spyware operation (what Chrome and Android actually are) and you take away the advantage they have in the market place.

        • So you're saying that their search works better because they collect the data needed to make it work better? Wow, how awful! I can't wait for us to have worse search results when we break up this evil monopoly!

          Telemetry isn't magic either, chicken little privacy advocates seem to have forgotten that.

        • The massive amount of telemetry Alphabet hovers up from Chrome and Android, are exactly the problem.

          If so, why do so many people use it? I have a desktop, a laptop, a tablet and an Android phone, and none of them use Chrome. The desktop and laptop use Linux and I've never installed it on either. I can't uninstall it from my tablet or phone, but I can install Firefox on both of them and ignore Chrome, and that's what I've done. Why? Because I don't trust Google and the only way I ever use it for sear

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nightflameauto ( 6607976 )

      It's an appeal to nationalism during an administration that's dead-set on using nationalism to bully the entire world.

      • This strategy may buy them something with Trump, but ultimately, it doesn't help much. Trump isn't litigating this case. And Trump isn't going to be around when the appeals all expire and whatever happens (a breakup, a gigantic fine, who knows) as a result takes effect. At best, that argument is a play to get the case dismissed on the whims of a naked emperor (no clothes, get it?) But it's a long shot.

        • This strategy may buy them something with Trump, but ultimately, it doesn't help much. Trump isn't litigating this case. And Trump isn't going to be around when the appeals all expire and whatever happens (a breakup, a gigantic fine, who knows) as a result takes effect. At best, that argument is a play to get the case dismissed on the whims of a naked emperor (no clothes, get it?) But it's a long shot.

          Can't disagree with your analysis at all. But the big business world seems to love sucking up to the would be God Emperor when it looks like it could result in a net positive for them. I don't think he's in control of the courts though, so it may just be all for show and favor currying "Just in case."

        • The DOJ quickly executed a complete reversal of position with regards to New York mayor Eric Adams criminal corruption trial when he agreed to support the administration policies.

          It would be easy for the DOJ to negotiate a settlement with Google, if Trump decides to make it so.

  • Indeed (Score:3)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @06:22AM (#65322585) Journal
    I would feel much better if Google could give me authentic made in the USA advertising which is genuine leather ones and zeros. No imitation binary stuff, it's bad for the health, we were told.

  • competition from China? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    But isn't China collapsing?

    Don't China only make cheap junk?

    Didn't Trump's million% tariffs put the final nail in the Chinese coffin?

    Surely the ban on chips worked?

    How about demographic collapse?

    The real-estate collapse?

    Didn't they all die of Covid?

    Well, shit...

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But isn't China collapsing?

      Not yet. Even Xi will need a decade or two to run it into the ground.

      Don't China only make cheap junk?

      Mostly. But that doesn't mean they can't improve in some areas.

      Didn't Trump's million% tariffs put the final nail in the Chinese coffin?

      Only the trumpists, the US analogue of the hardline Chinese communists, would believe that. You one of them, or one of their mirror image?

      Surely the ban on chips worked?

      Have you seen any FPGA or GPU out of China that is close to anything Nvidia can produce?

      How about demographic collapse?

      The real-estate collapse?

      Didn't they all die of Covid?

      Well, shit...

      You're confused about how these work in relation to the problem at hand. Pick a book or two and maybe you won't look like a complete idiot in a forum like

    • China doesn't only make cheap junk. They make intermediate goods. Stuff that 'Made in the USA' companies assemble and label as our own. They also make a lot of cheap junk, but that's actually their least important input/outputs.

  • The fix is obviously in on that one. There are many other search engines.

    However, the idea that the U.S. can't break up Google because we need to compete with China on magical AI fairy dust is completely bonkers.

  • The Global Race With China. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @07:16AM (#65322669)

    Google Says DOJ Breakup Would Harm US In 'Global Race With China'

    Sure, because the thing the US needs most in a competition with a hyper competitive Chinese tech industry is to keep America's fossilized monopolies in tact and to make it even easier for them to crush any emerging competitors and potential disruptors of the treasured status quo through a direct transactional connection to the White House. If there is one thing that will harm the US in the 'Global Race With China' it is these dinosaurs not being broken up to facilitate some semblance of the kind of competition that exists in the Chinese tech industry in the US.

  • Excuse of the day... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SouthSeb ( 8814349 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @07:27AM (#65322683)

    But, but, but... NATIONAL SECURITY! WAR WITH CHINA!

    It's just today's "won't anyone think about the kids".

  • Chrome is spyware / malware. It is probably the worst thing ever to happen to privacy in the history of the web and its massive dominance is huge part of it.

    Forcing them to spin that off along with some prohibition on Alphabet or its subsidiaries purchasing telemetry data collected by the new Chrome organization, should be all that is required here.

  • Because that's clearly what the headline says. I would have thought Google's concern would be being broken up by the DOJ, but that is clearly what the headline does not say.

  • we compare the harm of breaking them up in the trade war with China vs the harm of letting them be an illegal monopoly in the power struggle in the US?

    Some questions can't be asked.

  • Did Google not pay "fees" to the right people? Knowing the way a certain president made bilionares richer while appearing to bumble about with tarrifs, surely what they are doing is trying to make money for the "right" people?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Did Google not pay "fees" to the right people? Knowing the way a certain president made bilionares richer while appearing to bumble about with tarrifs, surely what they are doing is trying to make money for the "right" people?

      Don't worry. Google was only found guilty last week. They haven't been sentenced yet. There's still time for Google to pay the right people to make it go away.

      In the end that's all that matters - Google being guilty means diddly squat, like Microsoft was found guilty. All that matters

  • Search isn't the problem (Score:3)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Tuesday April 22, 2025 @09:51AM (#65322879) Homepage

    a judge's ruling in August that Google has held a monopoly in its core market of internet search

    Search by itself isn't the problem. The problem is the combination of search and advertising. Those absolutely need to be separated, because the synergies between the two are just too large.

  • Wow. So Google is actually trying to use the excuse of a weakened National Defense? For the United States?

    Sounds like a business suddenly critical enough for the United States Government to take over and run instead of civilians profiting obscenely off it.

    Hows that sound, Google?

    Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.

  • So Google gets a list of bogeymen and flings them at the wall, to see what sticks...

  • Google is giving the DOJ their own winning argument. Trump's DOJ is clearly operating with a strategic goal to help China flourish at the expense of the US economy; why else would he structure his tariffs like that?

  • Doesnt this argument belie the competition promotes innovation thesis central to capitalism? Isnt the corollary of Googles argument that either a command & control/ communist/ authoritarian/ crony monopolistic form of politics/economics is in their opinion superior for innovation?

  • There is no "race with China'. If there is any kind of global conflict, China will eat the USA for lunch. While we've invested in making billionaires, China has invested in infrastructure.

  • Not a legal argument, but a political argument. Making the case that the proposed punishment would be counter to the government's foreign and domestic policy.

    Google is hoping for pressure from the political levels of the Justice Department to change the prosecution's request for remedy.

    It may take a lot of sucking up to convince the administration to intervene.. even when positioned as a US vs China issue. They have not publicly been on the side of MAGA, so it is an uphill battle. Google will have to inv

Slashdot Top Deals

Measure twice, cut once.

Close