The stage is also being set for what could turn out to be one of the most dramatic changes to the search engine’s interface since Google’s co-founders started the company in a Silicon Valley garage during the late 1990s.
The next generation of Google’s AI is being packaged under the Gemini umbrella.
The change is an effort to crack down on fraud. But legitimate small businesses could be hurt if they’re unaware of the change.
The government’s case alleges Google has built and maintained an illegal monopoly that restricts choices and inflates costs for online publishers and advertisers.
The Justice Department, joined by a coalition of states, and Google each made opening statements Monday to a federal judge who will decide whether Google holds a monopoly over online advertising technology.
The suit adds to a string of recent legal challenges to Google’s dominance, including court rulings that declared its search business and mobile app store to be illegal monopolies.
The ruling adds to the significant legal defeats that Google has been dealt in the past year.
In protesting the judge’s potential requirements, Google has raised the specter of consumers’ devices being infected by malicious software downloaded from third-party app stores, triggering “security chaos.”
What new ideas could flourish, which new companies might get off the ground or what products might be cheaper if Google were handcuffed from flexing its monopoly power over search?
The highly anticipated court decision comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.
OpenAI’s push into search comes after Google in May jumped heavily into using generative AI in search.
Chrome is the world’s dominant web browser, and many others, including Microsoft’s Edge, are based on the company’s Chromium technology.
The change is the latest example of Google launching an AI product with fanfare and then rolling it back after it goes awry.
To bolster its case, the tech giant wrote a multimillion-dollar check to the U.S. government that it says renders moot the government’s best argument for demanding a jury trial.
The judge overseeing a pivotal antitrust trial focused on whether Google is stifling competition and innovation repeatedly indicated Thursday that he believes it would be difficult for a formidable rival search engine to emerge.
The massive housecleaning comes as part of a settlement in a lawsuit accusing the search giant of illegal surveillance.
Users alleged the search giant captured and tracked their data while in “Incognito” mode, a Chrome browser setting that is supposed to protect users’ privacy. The total cost to Google if it lost the case could have been in the billions.
Although Google struck the deal with state attorneys general in September, the settlement’s terms weren’t revealed until late Monday.
A federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected by anticompetitive barriers that have damaged smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire.
Other top searches included Damar Hamlin, Jeremy Renner, Matthew Perry and Tina Turner.
