Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have kept a low profile as the Big Tech firm weathers a series of critical antitrust court battles – and it’s part of a long-running pattern of avoiding federal scrutiny, experts say:
The search giant is reeling after a shocking court loss to “Fortnite” maker Epic Games that could upend its lucrative Android app store business. During that trial, US District Judge James Donato slammed what he called a “disturbing” companywide effort to destroy evidence in the high-stakes case.
Google faces yet another looming threat as it awaits a judge’s ruling on the Justice Department case alleging the company has maintained an illegal monopoly over online search. The 10-week trial concluded last month without an appearance by Page and Brin, who created Google’s search tool and held top executive roles as it rose to market dominance.
Instead, Justice Department’s antitrust lawyers grilled a number of current and former executives on Google’s payroll — as well as higher-ups from firms like Apple and Microsoft.
One prominent industry source who has been tracking the proceedings described the Justice Department’s decision not to call the founders to the stand as a “tactical mistake.” The source argued the feds missed an opportunity to grill the notoriously reclusive Page – an enigmatic figure who former friend Elon Musk once claimed has aspirations of becoming a “digital god.”
[...] The co-founders’ physical absence from the search trial, while notable and surprising to some outsiders, may have made more sense for federal antitrust lawyers aiming to build a laser-focused case about Google’s search business practices, experts told The Post.
“In a case that’s already 10 weeks long, you really want to walk the line between providing enough information and carrying your burden of proof as the government and dragging on and boring the judge,” said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, an antitrust law expert and professor at Vanderbilt Law School.
“Especially when it’s a bench trial, you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re putting irrelevant proof. You have to pick and choose your strongest witnesses,” Allensworth added.
Related:
- "Apple Must be Stopped" and Google is "Crazy" Says Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney
- Fortnite's Android Version Bypasses Google Play to Avoid 30% "Store Tax"
See also:
- US wraps up antitrust case against Google in historic trial
- What Google Argued to Defend Itself in Landmark Antitrust Trial
- Explainer: Epic Games verdict adds to Google’s global antitrust woes
Related Stories
'Fortnite' Avoiding Google Play Store's 30% Cut on Android Version
"Fortnite" will be available on Android, but not on the Google Play Store. Players will be able to download the installer for the game via the official "Fortnite" website, with which they can then download the game onto their compatible Android device.
The confirmation comes from Epic Games just days after speculation rose over whether or not "Fortnite" would come to Google Play, due to source code in the mobile version of "Fortnite" with instructions for users including notes like "This is necessary to install any app outside of the Play Store" found by XDA Developers. This particular prompt is referring to install of "Fortnite" on Android requiring users to select an option on their phone which opens up the device to allow third-party developers to make changes—an action some are calling a security threat.
For Epic, it's a way to bring the game "directly to customers," without the aid of a middleman. In a Q&A released by Epic, the publisher stated that, "We believe gamers will benefit from competition among software sources on Android. Competition among services gives consumers lots of great choices and enables the best to succeed based on merit." Of course, Google's 30% for games released through its Play Store is also a motivator.
"Avoiding the 30% 'store tax' is a part of Epic's motivation," Epic Games' Tim Sweeney stated in a Q&A. "It's a high cost in a world where game developers' 70% must cover all the cost of developing, operating, and supporting their games. And it's disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service. We're intimately familiar with these costs from our experience operating 'Fortnite' as a direct-to-customer service on PC and Mac."
See also: Epic Games' strategy for Fortnite on Android is stupid, greedy, and dangerous
Related: Epic Games Sues 14-Year-Old after He Files a DMCA Counterclaim for a How-to-Cheat Video
Sony Faces Growing 'Fortnite' Backlash At E3
'Apple Must be Stopped' and Google is 'Crazy' Says Tim Sweeney
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has decided to take shots at Apple and Google once again and has said that "Apple must be stopped." Sweeney said this in an app conference in South Korea. He's also said that Google was "crazy" about how they handled app purchases.
[...] According to a report from Bloomberg, Sweeney referenced this failure in remarks that he shared in a conference.
[...] "Apple locks a billion users into one store and payment processor," Sweeney said at the Global Conference for Mobile Application Ecosystem Fairness in South Korea, home to the world's first law requiring mobile platforms to give users a choice of payment handlers. "Now Apple complies with oppressive foreign laws, which surveil users and deprive them of political rights. But Apple is ignoring laws passed by Korea's democracy. Apple must be stopped."
[...] Google also earned a strong rebuke from Sweeney, who criticized its approach of charging fees on payments it doesn't process as "crazy." Praising Korea for leading the fight against anti-competitive practices with its recent legislation, the Epic Games founder said "I'm very proud to stand up against these monopolies with you. I'm proud to stand with you and say I'm a Korean."
Previously: Apple Can No Longer Force Developers to Use In-App Purchasing, Judge Rules
Apple Turns Post-Lawsuit Tables on Epic, Will Block Fortnite on iOS
Judge Denies Apple's Request to Delay App Store Changes in Epic Games Case
In mid-June 2019, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella received a rude awakening in an email warning that Google had officially gotten too far ahead on AI and that Microsoft may never catch up without investing in OpenAi.
With the subject line "Thoughts on OpenAI," the email came from Microsoft's chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, who is also the company's executive vice president of AI. In it, Scott said that he was "very, very worried" that he had made "a mistake" by dismissing Google's initial AI efforts as a "game-playing stunt."
[...] As just one example, Scott warned, "their auto-complete in Gmail, which is especially useful in the mobile app, is getting scarily good."
Microsoft had tried to keep this internal email hidden, but late Tuesday it was made public as part of the US Justice Department's antitrust trial over Google's alleged search monopoly.
[...] In an order unsealing the email among other documents requested by The Times, US District Judge Amit Mehta allowed to be redacted some of the "sensitive statements in the email concerning Microsoft's business strategies that weigh against disclosure"—which included basically all of Scott's "thoughts on OpenAI."
[...] Mere weeks later, Microsoft had invested $1 billion into OpenAI, and there have been billions more invested since through an extended partnership agreement. In 2024, the two companies' finances appeared so intertwined that the European Union suspected Microsoft was quietly controlling OpenAI and began investigating whether the companies still operate independently. Ultimately, the EU dismissed the probe, deciding that Microsoft's $13 billion in investments did not amount to an acquisition, Reuters reported.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by corey on Thursday December 28, @08:47PM (3 children)
What about Microsoft, whose operating system (Win 11) constantly changes my default browser to Edge, or makes Onedrive the default save to location in Office 365, along numerous other cross product bait and switching methods? And if you select another default browser, it shows messages saying Edge is the best, safest, blah blah. Regarding the Onedrive thing, you have to go into the options, go to advanced then unselect the option (opt out) that says default save to be online locations. What a joke. This company is out of control.
Don’t forget how hard, or at least unclear for the average user, it is to install Windows without making an account with Microsoft. I guess that’s not antitrust, but while I’m having a whinge….
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29, @12:09AM
Yes... yes... all of that is true. Let's deal with this one first, shall we? And then we'll get to the other one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29, @05:21AM (1 child)
Obviously most people don't care about this (Google) story. Even the prosecutors: "you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re putting irrelevant proof. "
Makes me wonder why even bother submitting this story about the founders anyway? Someone desperately trying to push some agenda/angle?
IMO Google does NOT have a monopoly over online search. Google is dominant because the other search engines are obviously WORSE.
Disagree? If you or anyone knows of a search engine that is better in general, please share it here and let me know. If it's really better I'll definitely switch to it and tell others. Believe me I've tried DDG, Bing - they're worse or crap. In history there have been plenty of search engines that have gained and then lost dominance (Infoseek, Altavista).
For now Yandex is BETTER than Google for CERTAIN searches. Certain image searches, certain web searches. For example if google fails to find hits for site:somesite.com keywords I'll give Yandex a shot. Same for copyrighted stuff, or certain image searches. Once in a while I'll try Bing and DDG and it'll confirm I just wasted my time. Microsoft has an abysmal track record on search (Windows, Outlook, Teams, Bing - all crap). I suspect they're just going to use AI not to improve their search but to confidently gaslight suckers into thinking certain results are what they want instead.
But Google image search is getting better at finding certain stuff - you can often figure out where people were by searching for their shared photos or stuff in their shared photos. Like cups/bowls with logos/patterns on them. Or popular scenes/scenery (e.g. distinctive beaches). Or even distinctive meals (oh this ramen/set is from restaurant X, or from stall Y in food court Z). So be careful - others can guess where you've been based on such photos.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Friday December 29, @10:11AM
I can accept that the story doesn't interest you - but it has been submitted, as have 2 earlier related stories regarding Google. We choose our stories from the submissions' queue and named submitters are usually prioritised in preference to submissions made via a bot. But they are all read and considered for publication by the editors. If someone thinks that they will generate a discussion then they are published, but not everybody is interested in the same subjects as everyone else. Some like the business items, others the hardware stories, and usually the 'random' topics get a reasonable reception. Some submissions are informative but there is little to be discussed about the actual content. We try to keep it as much of a mixed bag as possible.
We always welcome good submissions no matter how they are submitted.