The Google decision is the right ruling — at the wrong time
The glacially slow process of reining in bad behavior by a powerful corporation lands just as AI takes off.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/06/google-antitrust-ruling-late/
The Washington Post
August 6, 2024 at 3:32 p.m. EDT
In its resounding victory over Google, the Justice Department may well be slamming the proverbial antitrust barn door after the monopolistic horses already have fled.
As we’ve seen before, the glacially slow process of reining in bad behavior by a powerful corporation — in this case Google, the undisputed thoroughbred champion of search-engine advertising — is happening at the precise moment when technological trends are moving away from the product that made the monopolist dominant.
Generative artificial intelligence, not browser-based search, is the technology enchanting consumers and businesses at the moment — and for the foreseeable future. Google, an important player in AI but hardly the leader in a field that includes OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and multiple well-funded start-ups, now seems likely to be punished for its past transgressions just as a new market is taking shape.
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