Google expert Dr. Mark Israel is thorough on direct examination, but his credibility is eviscerated on cross. And the "rocket docket" stays true to its reputation as the trial comes to a close.
YES the government brought this case too late. The small publishers are GONE. Reminder: I took a lawyer to the DOJ in 2008 to make this exact complaint. Crickets. Still, whatever can be done to punish Google now might have an impact on Meta and Open AI (bound for ad supported business model) and others in the future.
Seriously, the underlying problem is ADVERTISING as the the way to support content services. It forces a race to the bottom in terms of the content and compromises integrity. This is why I support this newsletter. You get what yo pay for! Great job and thanks.
Judge Brinkema took note that Judge Mehta in the Google search antitrust trial had a break after the trial before closing statements and said she will do the same thing
Great reporting, throughout the whole trial, thank you!
Apart from the good & interesting writing, I especially appreciated explanations of (1) legal intricacies that are not obvious to readers (tying vs refusing to deal), (2) summaries of how the room look & felt and (3) the subjective descriptions of the humans involved. It made it a great reading.
I wanted to leave one comment on what you said about mobile web (I work in tech):
> This is true. We’ve all had the experience of trying to browse the web on our phones only to have many sites bug you and frustrate you into using their app.
While this is true, this is also caused by another monopoly - Apple. There's nothing fundamentally preventing web from being just as good as mobile apps.
However, Apple for years has sabotaged mobile web, thus pushing everyone towards it's walled garden and 30% fee. Very roughly:
- Apple forced everyone on iOS to use their web-browser "engine". Even if could internally "ship" a different browser (chrome, firefox) it internally had to use (buggy) Apple engine.
- Apple refused to implement web standards that everyone implemented many years earlier. For example, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8030 was proposed in 2016. Apple implemented it this only year, possibly due to DMA coming. (yay regulators).
Finally caught up and read all of your coverage on this case. Thanks Tom, excellent reporting. It was easy to follow the pace and mood of the case and unstated the implications of each piece of evidence and witness testimony, even as a layman.
Advertising period! yuck! enough said. Do away with ALL of it. Worthless crap. Insulting. Thx for following all of this boring advertising stuff for us, much needed. I'm sure though you enjoyed watching the lawyering going on. You got through the boring advertising stuff watching the lawyer's work. Awesome. Thx.
Thanks Tom for covering and reporting on this case for us. It was a lot to read and digest, so imagine your time commitment was extensive.
Brilliant reporting, amazing to be able to get such detail about such a significant (and significantly under-reported elsewhere) case, thank you
Really enjoyed reading about this historic courtroom drama. Thank you for your stellar reporting throughout this case!
Thank you for all of these reports; I look forward to seeing more big tech companies on trial in the future! Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your reports!
YES the government brought this case too late. The small publishers are GONE. Reminder: I took a lawyer to the DOJ in 2008 to make this exact complaint. Crickets. Still, whatever can be done to punish Google now might have an impact on Meta and Open AI (bound for ad supported business model) and others in the future.
Seriously, the underlying problem is ADVERTISING as the the way to support content services. It forces a race to the bottom in terms of the content and compromises integrity. This is why I support this newsletter. You get what yo pay for! Great job and thanks.
great write-up! thanks. do we know why closing statements aren't happening for two months?
Judge Brinkema took note that Judge Mehta in the Google search antitrust trial had a break after the trial before closing statements and said she will do the same thing
Great reporting, throughout the whole trial, thank you!
Apart from the good & interesting writing, I especially appreciated explanations of (1) legal intricacies that are not obvious to readers (tying vs refusing to deal), (2) summaries of how the room look & felt and (3) the subjective descriptions of the humans involved. It made it a great reading.
I wanted to leave one comment on what you said about mobile web (I work in tech):
> This is true. We’ve all had the experience of trying to browse the web on our phones only to have many sites bug you and frustrate you into using their app.
While this is true, this is also caused by another monopoly - Apple. There's nothing fundamentally preventing web from being just as good as mobile apps.
However, Apple for years has sabotaged mobile web, thus pushing everyone towards it's walled garden and 30% fee. Very roughly:
- Apple forced everyone on iOS to use their web-browser "engine". Even if could internally "ship" a different browser (chrome, firefox) it internally had to use (buggy) Apple engine.
- Apple refused to implement web standards that everyone implemented many years earlier. For example, https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8030 was proposed in 2016. Apple implemented it this only year, possibly due to DMA coming. (yay regulators).
A pretty good writeup of a "how Apple breaks the web and forces everyone to use their ecosystem" is in https://world.hey.com/dhh/native-mobile-apps-are-optional-for-b2b-startups-in-2024-4c870d3e. It would be cool to see you or Matt cover this monopolistic behavior too at some point :)
The “walled gardens” are looking less and less like gardens I would choose to visit, unless I could get away from the ads.
Finally caught up and read all of your coverage on this case. Thanks Tom, excellent reporting. It was easy to follow the pace and mood of the case and unstated the implications of each piece of evidence and witness testimony, even as a layman.
Thanks for all the info, Tom!
Loved reading it, especially as it is very hard to follow this trial, or any trial against Google at here from the Netherlands.
Advertising period! yuck! enough said. Do away with ALL of it. Worthless crap. Insulting. Thx for following all of this boring advertising stuff for us, much needed. I'm sure though you enjoyed watching the lawyering going on. You got through the boring advertising stuff watching the lawyer's work. Awesome. Thx.