Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to take the stand on Wednesday morning at a trial in Washington where antitrust enforcers seek an order forcing the company to sell its Chrome web browser and take other measures to boost competition among online search providers.
Pichai will testify in the Alphabet unit’s defense against proposals by the U.S. Department of Justice that the company has said would cause unintended harm to browser developers, smartphone makers and internet users.
The outcome of the case could fundamentally reshape the internet by potentially unseating Google as the go-to portal for information online.
The DOJ and a broad coalition of state attorneys general are pressing for remedies to restore competition even as search evolves to overlap with generative AI products such as ChatGPT. Prosecutors are concerned that Google’s dominance in search could extend to AI.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that Google, the site and app where most U.S. internet users search for information, “has no true competitor.” Google maintained its monopoly in part by paying billions of dollars to companies including Apple, Samsung, AT&T and Verizon to be the default search engine on new mobile devices, the judge said.
The DOJ wants the judge to end those payments and require Google to share search data with competitors.
Google has said the proposals would give away its hard work, and jeopardize its users’ privacy and endanger smaller companies like Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, that rely on Google for revenue.
The company recently loosened its agreements to allow device makers and carriers to pre-install other search and AI apps, according to evidence shown at trial. Google has said it plans to appeal once the judge makes a final ruling.
—Jody Godoy, Reuters
Войдите, чтобы добавить комментарий
Другие сообщения в этой группе
The new must-have pet accessory? A concrete slab.
On #CatTok, videos are racking up views as cat owners bring slabs into their homes, set them down, and watch their beloved pets sniff, l
OpenAI is rolling out a new AI agent within ChatGPT that can browse th
Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday to settle claims seeking $8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in
Holders of the digital tokens issued by World Liberty Financial, one of the
The use of AI companions is no longer niche behavior but has become em
