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By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases (and we have so many of public interest lately) never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read, right in the story. (and another user here kindly did that for us below: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223... )
It seems such a simple step (they must have been using the ruling PDF to write the story) yet why is it always such a hassle for them to feel that they should link the original content? I would rather be able to see the probably dozens of pages ruling with the full details rather than hear it secondhand from a reporter at this point. It feels like they want to be the gatekeepers of information, and poor ones at that.
I think it should be adopted as standard journalistic practice in fact -- reporting on court rulings must come with the PDF.
Aside from that, it will be interesting to see on what grounds the judge decided that this particular data sharing remedy was the solution. Can anyone now simply claim they're a competitor and get access to Google's tons of data?
I am not too familiar with antitrust precedent, but to what extent does the judge rule on how specific the data sharing need to be (what types of data, for what time span, how anonymized, etc. etc.) or appoint a special master? Why is that up to the judge versus the FTC or whoever to propose?
> By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read right in the story.
I presume that this falls under the same consideration as direct links to science papers in articles that are covering those releases. Far as I can tell, the central tactic for lowering bounce rate and increasing 'engagement' is to link out sparsely, and, ideally, not at all.
I write articles on new research papers, and always provide a direct link to the PDF,; but nearly all major sites fail to do this, even when the paper turns out to be at Arxiv, or otherwise directly available (instead of having been an exclusive preview offered to the publication by the researchers, as often happens at more prominent publications such as Ars and The Register).
In regard to the few publishers that do provide legal PDFs in articles, the solution I see most often is that the publication hosts the PDF itself, keeping the reader in their ecosystem. However, since external PDFs can get revised and taken down, this could also be a countermeasure against that.
Never link outside your domain has been rule #1 of the ad-driven business for years now.
Once users leave your page, they become exponentially less likely to load more ad-ridden pages from your website.
Ironically this is also why there is so much existential fear about AI in the media. LLMs will do to them what they do to primary sources (and more likely just cut them out of the loop). This Google story will get a lot of clicks. But it is easy to see a near future where an AI agent just retrieves and summarizes the case for you. And does a much better job too.
> By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases (and we have so many of public interest lately) never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read, right in the story.
I have the same peeve, but to give credit where it is due, I've happily noticed that Politico has lately been doing a good job of linking the actual decisions. I just checked for this story, and indeed the document you suggest is linked from the second paragraph: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/02/google-dodges-a-2-5...
I’ve noticed this in New York Times articles in the last couple years. Articles are heavily interlinked now - most “keyword” terms will link to a past article on the same topic - but the links rarely leave the Times’ site. The only exception is when they need to refer back to a prior story that they didn’t cover, but that another publication did. Sources are almost never linked; when they are, it’s to a PDF embed on the Times’ own site.
I assume they and all the other big publications have SEO editors who’ve decided that they need to do it for the sake of their metrics. They understand that if they link to the PDF, everyone will just click the link and leave their site. They’re right about that. But it is annoying.
Shoutout Ars Technica, where they never seem to sweat the… lost ad revenue? diminished time on page?… and give the PDF link.
Not just court cases. But so many situations where the primary sources are relevant. Most recently, I’ve seen journalists refer to questionable social media posts that they frame in a certain way but the actual posts don’t align with that frame
"Why is it up to the judge versus the FTC or whoever to propose?"
The data sharing remedy and other remedies were not the judge's proposals. They were proposed by the parties.
So true, I think it should be mandatory to put "sources:" as a consistently placed section in all "news" articles.
> By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases (and we have so many of public interest lately) never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read, right in the story.
Usually I would agree with you, however, the link is in the article hyperlinked under "Amit Mehta" in the 3rd paragraph. Now could the reporter have made that clearer...yes, but it's still there.
This is an astonishing victory for Google, they must be very happy about it.
They get basically everything they want (keeping it all in the tent), plus a negotiating position on search deals where they can refuse something because they can't do it now.
Quite why the judge is so concerned about the rise of AI factoring in here is beyond me. It's fundamentally an anticompetitive decision.
This seems like a very sensible and logical conclusion by the judge to me.
An exclusive contract with Apple/Samsung isn't great, but even Apple testified that they would not have accepted any other searcch engine because everyone else was worse. You can't make restrictions on what Apple is allowed to do because Google violated some law--if Apple wants to make Google the default, they should be allowed to do so! The ban on exclusive contracts makes sense though; they should not be allowed to use contracts to furthur their monopoly position.
And similarly with Chrome; it made no sense to bring Chrome into this equation. Google started, developed, and built Chrome into the best browser available today NOT through exclusive contracts, but because Chrome is just a better product. Users can switch to Firefox/Safari (Mac default)/Edge (Windows default); they don't because Chrome is better. Forcing Google to give up one of its best products is effectively eminent domain by the government to a private company.
With the rise of ChatGPT (I barely use Google anymore) and AI search engines potentially shifting the search landscape, who knows if Google will still be a monopoly 5 years from now. Software moves fast and the best solution to software monopoly is more software competition.
Firefox can still get money, and maybe Apple too. The ruling says they can pay for preload, but not for exclusivity.
Google also must share search data with competitors, but it's not totally clear what this is. The ruling mentions helping other engines with "long tail" queries.
All in all this seems like a pretty mild ruling, and an appeal can generally only help Google from a not to bad ruling at this point.
> Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divestiture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints.
This is the problem. It doesn't matter if they used those specific assets to perpetrate these specific acts. The overall market power derived from those assets (and many others) taints everything they do.
There is no way to effectively curtail monopoly power by selectively limiting the actions of monopolists in certain specific domains. It's like thinking you can stop a rampaging 500-pound gorilla by tying two of its fingers together because those were the two fingers that were at the leading edge of its blow when it crushed someone's skull with a punch.
Once a company has monopoly power of any kind, it is useless to try to stop it from using that power to do certain things. It will always find a way to use its power to get around any restrictions. The problem isn't what the monopoly does, it's that the monopoly exists. The only surefire way is to destroy the monopoly itself by shattering the company into tiny pieces so that no entity holds monopoly power at all.
The BBC is reporting the exact opposite of this headline.
"It's also free to keep making payments to partners such as Apple, to secure placement of its browser - another closely watched and contentious part of the case."
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cg50dlj9gm4t
Edit: Even the CNBC body text contradicts its own headline. The confusion seems to be what "exclusive" means.
"The company can make payments to preload products, but they cannot have exclusive contracts, the decision showed."
Re Chrome divesture:
> The remedy also extends beyond the conduct Plaintiffs seek to redress. It was Google’s control of the Chrome default, not its ownership of Chrome as a whole, that the court highlighted in its liability finding. See Google, 747 F. Supp. 3d at 120–21. Ordering Google to sell one of its most popular products, one that it has built “from the ground up” and in which it has invested (and continues to invest) billions of dollars, in the hope of opening a single channel of distribution to competition—and not even one that was unlawfully foreclosed by the challenged contracts—cannot reasonably be described as a remedy “tailored to fit the wrong creating the occasion for the remedy.” Microsoft III, 253 F.3d at 107; Rem. Tr. at 2466:23–2468:3 (Pichai); id. at 1634:23–1636:2 (Tabriz) (discussing PXR0215 at -257). Further, as a legal matter, the divestiture of Chrome exceeds the proper scope of relief. “All parties agree that the relevant geographic marketis the United States.” Google, 747 F. Supp. 3d at 107. Chrome, however, is not so geographically confined. The vast majority—over 80%—of its monthly active users are located outside the United States. Rem. Tr. at 1619:23–1620:6 (Tabriz). Plaintiffs do not try to make the case that a divestiture of Chrome to just U.S.-based users is feasible.
The search deals were already not exclusive. The real impact will be the other businesses (especially GenAI) where Google will be barred from having exclusivity clauses in its contracts.
-update- CNBC has fixed their headline.
https://archive.is/GJWPP
Bloomberg article is better, has more details on the remedy.
IMHO: They got off easy. Looking forward to reading Matt Stoller’s take on this.
A loser in this is Perplexity. I’ve never understood the thesis of Apple purchasing them: whether or not you enjoy their product, I see nothing defensible or interesting and suspect they’re among the most overvalued AI startup.
Nonetheless, I’d bet Apple will do more of what’s worked: partner with Google to solve something core that they’re not great at. I’d take a deeply integrated Gemini on the iPhone over Siri any day of the week!
> The company can make payments to preload products, but it cannot have exclusive contracts, the decision stated.
How is this relevant? Apple is the one selling exclusive access to search on iPhone, not Google.
I think ultimately this is a good decision. The web has flourished in part because Google has supported Chrome so well over the years since they are incentivized to do so. You don't have to use Chrome (I don't) to benefit from this second order effect.
They should be barred from shipping experimental or non-standardized features in Chrome to prevent them from abusing their monopoly and forcing others hands by creating de-facto standards without a fair discourse.
Experimental features should be allowed in special Chrome builds targeted at developers only, and not be allowed to come preinstalled on any consumer device.
This story has something I've never seen on HN before: underneath the title and the subsequent "X points by colesantiago N hours ago | flag | hide ..." line, there is a link to https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223...
No other story on the front page has this, and I've never seen it before. How did that link get there? It is not the link to the story itself. That is on cnbc.com.
It’s surprising that the proven conflict of interest posed by other departments driving Chrome team decisions was allowed to stand. I would’ve expected at minimum for Google to be required to keep Chrome/Blink as siloed off from the rest of the company as is practically possible.
Stock up ~8% after hours, equating to ~$200B in market cap.
(Whereas Perplexity was offering $32B)
So… no punishment for past indiscretions, only barriers to protect against future ones? Got it.
https://archive.is/GJWPP
The Bloomberg article is much better on what exactly is the remedy. IMHO: they got off easy.
Thank goodness. Them spinning that out would have been a nightmare. Bad day to be Apple.
Edit: I just checked the stock, I had no idea people priced in a split with that much certainty.
It’s remarkable that in certain instances, it’s wrong or even potentially dangerous to democracy to question institutions, and in other instances it’s okay to say a judge or a judicial system is corrupt and favoring big tech.
Anyone have a rubric I can follow?
How corrupt are judges in the USA?
Are their any measures that audit their finances or stop them or their relations from taking work with companies they have issued judgements on?
I'm not saying this is the case here, it is a general question.
So what's the lesson here, go ahead and abuse your monopoly as long as you want and the worst that will happen is you'll be told to stop doing that eventually? Or am I misunderstanding something here?
What does this mean for Mozilla?
Where would Mozilla get their 80% of revenue from if Google now has to probably sever and end their search deal for Firefox? [0].
[0] https://www.theverge.com/news/660548/firefox-google-search-r...
Apple stock is up 3%, strongly implying that this ruling is good for Apple as well. That is in contradiction to a lot of folks saying that this ruling means Google won't have to pay Apple. While the terms of the deal with Apple will likely change, based on the stock price increase, Apple will likely end up with a different deal (if not better).
Another thing to note, contrary to some comments, is that Google is still allowed to make a deal with Apple to be the default search engine, but with extra rules.
``` Google also would be permitted to pay Browser Developers, including Apple, to set Search as the default GSE, so long as the Browser Developer (1) can promote other GSEs and (2) is permitted to set a different GSE on different operating system versions or in a privacy mode and makes changes, if desired, on an annual basis. ```
When the stock pops 10% on the announcement you got your antitrust enforcement wrong.
Does that (the ruling) mean that a company that sells Android devices, will be able to sell that device with a non-Google certified android-fork (ie Google won't be able to forbid them from doing so)?
What about Edge? The browser on every PC and the default browser after every update? Can't even delete the desktop shortcuts.
> Can anyone now simply claim they're a competitor and get access to Google's tons of data?
The ruling lays out the definition for "Qualified competitors". Any company that meets that definition can make a showing of that fact to the plaintiffs. Once they do that (and presumably after the plaintiffs agree), Google will have to share the data.
The headline is not great because Google will obviously appeal the ruling to the appeals court of DC, and if they have to, the Supreme Court.
A lot can happy from now and then. And this may take many years to grind through the court system.
I wonder if there exists AI models of all the super senior and important judges so we can venture how this will play out through the court system.
Couldn't the government appeal the punishment? Saying the judge was biased or that the punishment does not fit the crime
Google's response:
"Read our statement on today’s decision in the case involving Google Search."
https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/doj-s...
I kinda knew that Google will manage to dodge the nuclear option in this antitrust case. Like, sure, they got dinged for anticompetitive practices (which everyone saw coming), but Mehta stopping short of forcing a Chrome or Android divestiture was a huge win for them.
>During the remedies trial in May, the DOJ asked the judge to force Google to share the data it uses for generating search results, such as data about what users click on.
Does this mean that government can know your every step on Chrome?
> Plaintiff States asserted, placed Microsoft at a competitive disadvantage
poor microsoft, please, somebody, help them
Ayo nothing special here but if you're a Unity / Python Coder and get stuck and search for answers, you're probably familiar with: guthib.net
and no, not github. Just see what happens…
Most annoying thing ever is using google search on safari iphone. They constantly ask you to switch to chrome with the default button highlighted to open chrome/app store. So annoying.
The antitrust case I'm really interested in seeing the outcome of is Google's ad monopoly. Assuming they move forward with even that.
This is the worst possible outcome for the internet. Google gets to enjoy the spoils of their illegal anticompetitive business practices, they're emboldened to continue violating the law, and the market remains utterly fucked. Also, Firefox catches a stray bullet because fuck you that's why.
If I am reading this correctly, Google is now required to syndicate their search text ads to "Qualified Competitors." This is important as it will allow companies to monetize AI answers and other search replacements without needing to completely build a corresponding search ad marketplace. The search ad marketplace is a somewhat natural monopoly where the revenue per auction actually grows with the number of auctions so a second search ad marketplace could never develop on its own.