Welcome to Big Tech on Trial. This free newsletter is brought to you by the BIG newsletter with daily coverage on the Google antitrust trial reported by Lee Hepner and additional commentary from Matt Stoller. The 36% Apple Tax is leaked, and the Chicago School makes its last stand.
> Next, Weinberg testified about the attempts DuckDuckGo made over the course of several years to pitch browsers on making DuckDuckGo the default search engine for their private browsing mode. “We thought it was a pretty great pitch to browsers,” Weinberg said.
> But Weinberg explained that DuckDuckGo couldn’t penetrate the default agreements Google already had in place with browsers that prevented the browsers from using a different default for private browsing. DuckDuckGo’s pitch to browsers turned out to be a “quixotic exercise.”
As an economist I wrote off so-called economists like Murphy and the worst of them all, Milton Friedman, long ago. For all their brilliance, they are all complete idiots, never understanding the real world effect of their work. No one needs to be an economist to realize that the corporate consolidation creates monopolies giving corporations market power to charge prices that generate excess profits. I love telling these jerks the economics is NOT A SCIENCE.
Sigh. Common sense seems to have become a recessive gene in this country. On another note, I see BBC and EU journalists commenting more on this trial now. The EU has gone to trial (after Google) three times in a row now and won all of them. Over eight billion $ in fines thus far and counting. Not to mention the laws they’ve passed (e.g. USB universal charging standards) and others still in the works. And yet, apparently, big tech makes enough of a decent profit margin to very much wish to continue to do business with them and even bend to the will of their laws that protect EU consumers. What the heck is our problem? (That’s rhetorical, BIG readers probably already have an idea…)
Consolidated, merged, acquired, bought, exchanged stock, more productive, eliminated waste these are words that affect our lives without a shot being fired.
> DuckDuckGo is not trying to compete for a broader market. They’re not really competing for defaults.
Duckduckgo testified several weeks ago in this courtroom that they struggled to get browsers to set them as the default: https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/what-is-it-like-to-compete-against
> Next, Weinberg testified about the attempts DuckDuckGo made over the course of several years to pitch browsers on making DuckDuckGo the default search engine for their private browsing mode. “We thought it was a pretty great pitch to browsers,” Weinberg said.
> But Weinberg explained that DuckDuckGo couldn’t penetrate the default agreements Google already had in place with browsers that prevented the browsers from using a different default for private browsing. DuckDuckGo’s pitch to browsers turned out to be a “quixotic exercise.”
As an economist I wrote off so-called economists like Murphy and the worst of them all, Milton Friedman, long ago. For all their brilliance, they are all complete idiots, never understanding the real world effect of their work. No one needs to be an economist to realize that the corporate consolidation creates monopolies giving corporations market power to charge prices that generate excess profits. I love telling these jerks the economics is NOT A SCIENCE.
Fantastic coverage of the trial, thank you all for doing this! Take google down!
Sigh. Common sense seems to have become a recessive gene in this country. On another note, I see BBC and EU journalists commenting more on this trial now. The EU has gone to trial (after Google) three times in a row now and won all of them. Over eight billion $ in fines thus far and counting. Not to mention the laws they’ve passed (e.g. USB universal charging standards) and others still in the works. And yet, apparently, big tech makes enough of a decent profit margin to very much wish to continue to do business with them and even bend to the will of their laws that protect EU consumers. What the heck is our problem? (That’s rhetorical, BIG readers probably already have an idea…)
Thanks Lee. Nice having you with your experience on board.
Consolidated, merged, acquired, bought, exchanged stock, more productive, eliminated waste these are words that affect our lives without a shot being fired.
isn’t that cozy 💎🪄🧩