Welcome to the Tech Mem Right Home for Tuesday, August 6th, 2024. I'm Brian McCullough today.

Three big stories to catch you up on. A federal judge has ruled Google is an illegal monopoly. The Game

of Thrones style drama at Open AI is just getting weirder and what if all those weird

aquahires in all but name are actually mercy killings? Here's what you miss today in the world of

tech. Sometimes it just all comes in waves after weeks of sort of slow summer news days

lots of big stories to catch you up on today a federal judge has ruled that Google illegally monopolized the

search market including through deals to be the default search option on phones and

browsers.

Quoting Bloomberg, Judge Amit Meta in Washington said that the alphabet units

$26 billion in payments to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers

effectively blocked any other competitor from

succeeding in the market.

Google's distribution agreements foreclose a substantial portion of the general search services

market and impairs rivals opportunities to compete, Meta said in a

286 page ruling. By monopolizing distribution on phones and browsers, Google has been

able to consistently raise the prices of online advertising without

consequences Meta said. The trial evidence firmly established that

Google's monopoly power maintained by the exclusive distribution agreements has

enabled Google to increase text ads prices without any meaningful

competitive constraint, he wrote.

Google said it plans to appeal the decision, quote, as this process continues, we will remain focused

on making products that people find helpful and easy

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