the government’s biggest antitrust trial in three decades, Google versus the Justice Department is underway!  The federal government and more than three dozen states accusing the company of illegally protecting a search monopoly.  Who wins?  👍 for Google 👎 for DOJ

Sam Mendoza

The AI chatbot boom is shaping up to be quite the windfall for phone makers—even smaller brands like Motorola. On Thursday, AI startup Perplexity announced a partnership with Motorola to install Perplexity’s app on Motorola devices, a move aimed at boosting Perplexity’s audience. The deal also gives new owners of Motorola phones three months of the Perplexity Pro subscription free.

Google has negotiated a similar deal with Motorola for Google’s Gemini AI app, a Google executive testified this week at a trial in Washington aimed at deciding how the tech giant’s operations will be overhauled to fix its illegal search practices. (The Justice Department, which sued Google on antitrust grounds, wants to stop Google using these deals to lock up app distribution.) CNBC reported today that Motorola is also partnering with Microsoft Copilot and Meta Platforms for AI services to handle certain queries.

While not every company in these partnerships is necessarily paying Motorola, there’s a reasonable chance some are—particularly those that need the audience more. For once, Motorola is getting some love.

https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/announcing-our-global-partnership-with-motorola?utm_campaign=article_email&utm_content=article-14915&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg

The AI chatbot boom is shaping up to be quite the windfall for phone makers—even smaller brands like Motorola. On Thursday, AI startup Perplexity announced a partnership with Motorola to install Perplexity’s app on Motorola devices, a move aimed at boosting Perplexity’s audience. The deal also gives new owners of Motorola phones three months of the Perplexity Pro subscription free.  Google has negotiated a similar deal with Motorola for Google’s Gemini AI app, a Google executive testified this week at a trial in Washington aimed at deciding how the tech giant’s operations will be overhauled to fix its illegal search practices. (The Justice Department, which sued Google on antitrust grounds, wants to stop Google using these deals to lock up app distribution.) CNBC reported today that Motorola is also partnering with Microsoft Copilot and Meta Platforms for AI services to handle certain queries.  While not every company in these partnerships is necessarily paying Motorola, there’s a reasonable chance some are—particularly those that need the audience more. For once, Motorola is getting some love.  https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/announcing-our-global-partnership-with-motorola?utm_campaign=article_email&utm_content=article-14915&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg

We're excited to announce our global partnership with Motorola. Starting with the new generation of Motorola devices, Perplexity will be pre-installed on millions of smartphones worldwide, giving Motorola users direct access to our answer engine and assistant.

Announcing Our Global Partnership with Motorola

Jerome Cody

A Perplexity executive on Wednesday testified that Google’s distribution contracts with phone manufacturers and mobile carriers have blocked his company’s efforts to achieve similar deals, as the Department of Justice attempts to convince a federal judge to end those contracts as part of remedies to address Google’s illegal search monopoly 

https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/perplexity-says-google-deals-hindered-distribution?rc=9byxri&utm_campaign=article_email&utm_content=article-14914&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg

A Perplexity executive on Wednesday testified that Google’s distribution contracts with phone manufacturers and mobile carriers have blocked his company’s efforts to achieve similar deals, as the Department of Justice attempts to convince a federal judge to end those contracts as part of remedies to address Google’s illegal search monopoly   https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/perplexity-says-google-deals-hindered-distribution?rc=9byxri&utm_campaign=article_email&utm_content=article-14914&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sg

A Perplexity executive on Wednesday testified that Google’s distribution contracts with phone manufacturers and mobile carriers have blocked his company’s efforts to achieve similar deals, as the Department of Justice attempts to convince a federal judge to end those contracts as part of remedies to address Google’s illegal search monopoly.    Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s chief business

Perplexity Says Google Deals  Hindered Distribution

Bobby

Google is paying “enormous” sums of money to guarantee its Gemini #Artificial Intelligence chatbot placement on Android phones, such as those sold by Samsung, in a repeat of its playbook for Google search which the court has ruled illegal, a lawyer for the Justice Department claimed in court on Wednesday.

The lawyer, David Dahlquist, was speaking in opening statements on the first day of hearings aimed at coming up with remedies to deal with Google’s search monopoly. A lawyer for Google, in opening statements for the company, disputed the Justice Department’s characterization of the Gemini agreements but didn’t go into details.

Dahlquist foreshadowed the statements that witnesses for the government would make in the hearing over the next few days. These include OpenAI’s head of product, Nick Turley, who the lawyer said will testify about OpenAI’s challenges in getting enough distribution for its ChatGPT AI chatbot. Turley will testify that despite the company’s resources and the popularity of ChatGPT, they can only get 80% of the way to be able to compete with Google quickly, with the remaining 20%—being able to handle the “long tail” of uncommon queries—taking a long time, even years.

The government wants the court to force Google to share search data with rivals and to divest its Chrome web browser, which the government said was the entry point for 35% of search queries. A lawyer for the state of Colorado, who is appearing alongside the government, said Chrome had more than 4 billion monthly active users. The lawyer said a longtime investment banker would testify that Chrome was an “attractive acquisition opportunity.” The hearing is scheduled to last for three weeks, while the judge is expected to rule by August.

https://bgr.com/tech/google-paid-samsung-enormous-sums-to-put-gemini-ai-on-galaxy-s25/

Artificial Intelligence

Google is paying “enormous” sums of money to guarantee its Gemini #Artificial Intelligence chatbot placement on Android phones, such as those sold by Samsung, in a repeat of its playbook for Google search which the court has ruled illegal, a lawyer for the Justice Department claimed in court on Wednesday.  The lawyer, David Dahlquist, was speaking in opening statements on the first day of hearings aimed at coming up with remedies to deal with Google’s search monopoly. A lawyer for Google, in opening statements for the company, disputed the Justice Department’s characterization of the Gemini agreements but didn’t go into details.  Dahlquist foreshadowed the statements that witnesses for the government would make in the hearing over the next few days. These include OpenAI’s head of product, Nick Turley, who the lawyer said will testify about OpenAI’s challenges in getting enough distribution for its ChatGPT AI chatbot. Turley will testify that despite the company’s resources and the popularity of ChatGPT, they can only get 80% of the way to be able to compete with Google quickly, with the remaining 20%—being able to handle the “long tail” of uncommon queries—taking a long time, even years.  The government wants the court to force Google to share search data with rivals and to divest its Chrome web browser, which the government said was the entry point for 35% of search queries. A lawyer for the state of Colorado, who is appearing alongside the government, said Chrome had more than 4 billion monthly active users. The lawyer said a longtime investment banker would testify that Chrome was an “attractive acquisition opportunity.” The hearing is scheduled to last for three weeks, while the judge is expected to rule by August.  https://bgr.com/tech/google-paid-samsung-enormous-sums-to-put-gemini-ai-on-galaxy-s25/

Antitrust case that found Google operates a Search monopoly revealed Google paid enormous sums for Gemini AI installation on Samsung phones.

Google paid Samsung 'enormous sums' to put Gemini AI on the Galaxy S25

Cyril

A court in Virginia ruled that Google had violated antitrust law by “wilfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” for the sale of ads on independent websites across the internet. In tandem with the ruling in August that Google has an illegal monopoly in search, the decision increases the likelihood that Google will be drastically reshaped by court decrees in the next year or two.

Google will likely be forced, as a result of Thursday’s decision, to dismantle much of its ad tech business which dominates both how advertisers buy ads on independent websites, and how web publishers sell their ad space. The government claimed in its case that Google used its power on both sides of the market to raise prices and squeeze out rivals.

“We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,“ said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs at Google in a statement, noting that the ruling found that Google’s acquisitions and advertising tools don’t harm competition. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/technology/google-ad-tech-antitrust-ruling.html

A court in Virginia ruled that Google had violated antitrust law by “wilfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power” for the sale of ads on independent websites across the internet. In tandem with the ruling in August that Google has an illegal monopoly in search, the decision increases the likelihood that Google will be drastically reshaped by court decrees in the next year or two.  Google will likely be forced, as a result of Thursday’s decision, to dismantle much of its ad tech business which dominates both how advertisers buy ads on independent websites, and how web publishers sell their ad space. The government claimed in its case that Google used its power on both sides of the market to raise prices and squeeze out rivals.  “We won half of this case and we will appeal the other half,“ said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs at Google in a statement, noting that the ruling found that Google’s acquisitions and advertising tools don’t harm competition. “We disagree with the Court’s decision regarding our publisher tools. Publishers have many options and they choose Google because our ad tech tools are simple, affordable and effective.”  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/technology/google-ad-tech-antitrust-ruling.html

The ruling was the second time in a year that a federal court had found that Google had acted illegally to maintain its dominance.

Google Is a Monopolist in Online Advertising Tech, Judge Says

Browser bluster: DOJ wants Chrome divested.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/08/new-doj-proposal-still-calls-for-google-to-divest-chrome-but-allows-for-ai-investments/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-20250320

Browser bluster: DOJ wants Chrome divested.  https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/08/new-doj-proposal-still-calls-for-google-to-divest-chrome-but-allows-for-ai-investments/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter-20250320

The U.S. Department of Justice is still calling for Google to sell its web browser Chrome, according to a Friday court filing.  The DOJ first proposed

Sam Mendoza

A group of likeminded people in The Most Important Thing are talking about this.