Will the Google Antitrust Ruling Change the Internet?
Though "It could take years to resolve," the Washington Post imagines six changes that could ultimately result from the two monopoly rulings on Google:Imagine a Google-quality search engine but without ads - or one tailored to children, news junkies or Lego fans. It's possible that Google could be forced to let other companies access its search technology or its essential data to create search engines with the technical chops of Google - but without Google... Would Apple create a search engine...? The likeliest scenario is you'd need to pick whether to use Google on your iPhone or something else. But technologists and stock analysts have also speculated for years that Apple could make its own search engine. It would be like when Apple started Apple Maps as an alternative to Google Maps. What if Google weren't allowed to know so much about you? Jason Kint of Digital Content Next, an industry group that includes online news organizations, said one idea is Google's multiple products would no longer be allowed to commingle information about what you do. It would essentially be a divorce of Google's products without breaking the company up. That could mean, for example, that whatever you did on your Android phone or the websites you visit using Chrome would not feed into one giant Google repository about your activities and interests. The article also wonders if the judge could order Google to be broken up, with separate companies formed out of Android, Google search, and Chrome. (Or if more search competition might make prices drop for the products advertised in search results - or lower the fees charged in Android's app store.) Android's app store might also lose its power to veto apps that compete with Google. "This is educated speculation," the article acknowledges. "It's also possible that not much will really change. That's what happened after Google was found to have broken the European Union's anti-monopoly laws." Google has also said it plans to appeal Monday's ruling.
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