Google and the Government

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 572 Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against Google. It accuses the company of stifling competition and operating a near-monopoly on the search advertising industry. Naturally, Google disagrees with those charges. And so the stage has been set for the biggest antitrust battle in decades. It's a complicated case, one with tens of billions of dollars at stake, behind-the-scenes political machinations in play, and the future of how we navigate the internet in question.

On this episode of Gadget Lab, we talk with WIRED politics writer Gilad Edelman about the ins and outs of the DOJ's case against Google, and what it might mean for the future of web search, Android, and iOS.

Show Notes:

Read Gilad’s story about the suit against Google here. Read Steven Levy’s story about how the DOJ’s case may lack teeth here.

Recommendations:

Gilad recommends lemon wedges. Lauren recommends the book How to Be Successful without Hurting Men’s Feelings by Sarah Cooper. Mike recommends a book about Radiohead called This Isn't Happening by Steven Hyden.

Gilad Edelman can be found on Twitter @GiladEdelman. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Lauren.
0:00.8	Mike.
0:01.8	Lauren, how many times a day would you say you use a Google product?
0:06.7	It's just way too many to count.
0:10.0	I mean, it could be anything from Googling whether I can make a recipe without the cornstarch that is required to what's a normal blood oxygen level, which is probably a fairly common search during
0:23.9	these dark pandemic times. Google is everywhere. That's right. And that actually seems to be
0:28.8	the point. It is everywhere. And that's what we're going to talk about on today's show.
0:40.4	Hi, everyone.
0:41.5	Welcome to Gadget Lab.
0:42.6	I am Michael Colori, a senior editor at Wired.
0:45.1	I am joined remotely by my co-host, Wired, senior writer Lauren Good.
0:49.6	Hello.
0:50.4	And we are also joined this week by Wired's politics writer Galad Edelman.
0:54.7	Colori, what's good, Lauren?
0:58.7	I think you're the first person to come on the gadget lab and say that.
1:03.1	That's pretty good.
1:04.8	Thank you.
1:06.0	Today we're going to talk about Google.
1:08.3	This week, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a legal
1:11.2	complaint against Google, accusing the company of being, quote, a monopoly gatekeeper for the
1:15.7	internet. The DOJ says that Google dominates search on mobile devices and in web browsers
1:20.7	and blocks its search rivals. It's the biggest antitrust case since the U.S. tried to
	...

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