Two years can be an eternity for the technology industry: plenty of time for enterprises to innovate, launch a new product, peak on the stock market… and then plummet again.
Think about the bubbles that briefly surrounded 3D printing, smart glasses, or the metaverse.
But somehow ChatGPT has escaped that fate because two years after its launch —around the time when enthusiasm for the metaverse began to collapse — it is still on everyone’s lips and has managed to revolutionize the way many of us live and work.
OpenAI’s well-known chatbot has put generative artificial intelligence (genAI) firmly in the public sphere, prompting a wave of imitators and even moving the agendas of the highest political bodies.
The European Union, for example, had been working for several years on a new regulation for AI, but this was completely disrupted by the appearance of generative AI. It was renegotiated in record time, resulting in the AI Act approved last December.
This fact shows that this technology is not only about possibilities, but also about laws, ethics and philosophy, and security and privacy challenges. In addition, it has revealed the opposing strategies of the geopolitical blocs in the race for the digital economy.
All this, due in large part to the explosion of ChatGPT. In fact, six months after the chatbot’s release, the Future of Life Institute asked for a pause in its development in an open letter, saying its risks could not be controlled, even going so far as to say that it could pose a danger to our civilization as we know it if systems were built that surpassed humans. More than 31,000 people signed the letter, including industry figures such as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak and OpenAI cofounder Elon Musk.
ChatGPT broke all predictions. A study by UBS found that it was the fastest consumer application to reach 100 million users, in just two months, although it has since been surpassed by Meta’s social network Threads. And, at the business level, it has one million licenses. In total, it has more than 180.5 million monthly active users as of April of this year, and its page was accessed by 1,625 million visitors in the month of February, according to PrimeWeb.
“It has transformed the way we interact with technology,” says Fernando Maldonado, an independent analyst. “Today, anyone can access AI without the need for advanced knowledge or intermediaries, something that was previously reserved for specialists.”
Sara Robisco, a data scientist and author of the book Historia de la Inteligencia Artificial, adds that there has also been a great marketing movement to get it used by everyone.
Evolving intelligence
It has been possible to reach this point, the two experts say, through the use of vast computing capacity, fed by new sources of data from a multitude of forums, documents, and social networks.
“Generative AI stands out because its improvements are due to the intensive use of resources, which depend directly on these two variables. For example, that the model processes more contextual information or its access to more up-to-date or specialized cases,” says Maldonado.
Thus, as far as society is concerned, ChatGPT has caused people to start looking for “more or less acceptable” information in a chatbot, in Robisco’s eyes.
Now, we are fully in the ‘GPT4 era’, the latest version of the system that improves in text, speech recognition and can even generate code, which has given rise to multimodal models. “It is possible to create videos from text,” says Maldonado. “In particular, this year we have seen how we have been able to ask it to draw something, thus expanding the ways of communicating with AI.”
Its evolution is clear, Robisco adds. “It is a model that has already been trained, which does not have to be started from scratch, which means that in a short time we can see significant improvements.” But ChatGPT still hallucinates a lot. “You have to ask them very specific questions and keep in mind that you can’t ask for something too current.”
And Maldonado sees the evolution continuing: “We are at a stage in which generative AI is developing reasoning capabilities, understood as planning and solving problems autonomously. These are the so-called AI agents, which can be understood as an evolution of virtual assistants. Although there is still a long way to go, I think it is useful to think that it is going from being a doctor’s office to a collaborator that does things for you.”
Risks and challenges
Given generative AI’s potential and upward progress, it raises many questions. One of the most controversial and feared is that it may take away jobs, if it is not already doing so — at least the most repetitive and automatable. Forrester estimates that generative AI replaced about 90,000 jobs globally in 2023, and that by 2030 the figure will increase to 2.4 million.
Maldonado believes that it is not doing it massively or directly. “In reality, it does not seek to replace people, but to empower them. However, as these models become more sophisticated and numerous, worker productivity will grow exponentially. As a result, fewer people will be needed to perform the same tasks.
Robisco, on the other hand, is optimistic about this and believes that it will only remove the most repetitive tasks, leaving the most creative, important and value-added part to humans.
But this is not the only issue of concern about generative AI: there are also the hallucinations themselves, bias in the data, or the lack of transparency and traceability. “This is going to limit some use cases, covered by current regulations and those that are to come,” says Maldonado.
And let’s not forget the security and privacy of the data those models are being fed, and how attackers use them to refine their threats. “There will even be people who can get private information just by knowing how to interrogate the machine,” Maldonado says.
OpenAI, in the middle of the maelstrom
If ChatGPT’s career has been dizzying and not without debate two past years, that of its creator company is not far behind. OpenAI was founded as a non-profit, then as it began to release products, Microsoft became its main investor. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman left abruptly, briefly joined Microsoft and, shortly after, returned.
Among the company’s other founders, Elon Musk, who had already left the company, sued its directors for breaking with the original statutes and becoming a for-profit company. He was right, as the latest movements of the organization confirm it, with many executives leaving and the company searching for more funding.
There are also those who wonder whether the illustrious Altman has become a liability for OpenAI itself.
In any case, Robisco summarizes, the company’s still-brief history corresponds to a “typical case of someone who want to innovate with a toy that they see no future for. But people have started using it and want it. The product is no longer a toy and now they want to price it.”
The effort to re-shore chip manufacturing in the US could be in peril as a new presidential administration has signaled a shift in direction, all while a semiconductor industry seems at times to be struggling.
Brandon Lucia, a Carnegie Mellon professor of electrical and computer engineering and CEO of chip startup Efficient Computer, believes the success of the CHIPS Act will hinge on three factors: substantial funding, advancements in manufacturing capabilities, and a thriving ecosystem of innovators in the U.S.
Efficient Computer is planning to launch its first commercial chip — an energy-efficient, general-purpose processor — in the first half of 2025. As demand for more powerful chips grows in tandem with the evolution and adoption of artificial intelligence, Lucia predicts chipmakers will prioritize energy efficiency for improved longevity and performance; they’ll also be forced to address sustainable manufacturing in semiconductor fabs to address environmental issues such as water runoff and carbon footprints.
Computerworld spoke with Lucia about the state of the CHIPS Act and the future of chip manufacturing. The following are excerpts from that interview.
Why do you believe President Biden has held off on actually disbursing the CHIPS Act funding? “I wouldn’t want to speculate on anything related to the enactment of government policy. I can tell you relative to the enactment of CHIPS Act…that I think there’s a big opportunity, whether it’s the CHIPS Act or something else. There’s a lot of opportunity for big-time innovation, but you need a lot of money to get this stuff done.
“So, while I’m not a political pundit, I think a big allocation of resources going into the domestic semiconductor industry is a great way to support innovation and to level up across the entire industry — from innovation to manufacturing and everything in between.”
How can the current administration get the funds distributed over the next two months? “I believe he’s on a very tight schedule. I think that you have to get the funding out there. It’s important to support the innovation economy around the semiconductor industry. It would be a real boon for the industry, whether through the CHIPS Act or not; it’s important to have that big allocation of resources into the semiconductor industry…. That means university innovation, basic research and start-up companies.
“It’s also about growing the ecosystem, and this is where I think the resources really begin to pay off — in developing new standards and new processes, supporting things like advanced manufacturing and new technologies like chiplets and advanced packaging.
“When I choose a process node through which I will implement my semiconductor product, I’m compelled by pricing, competitive performance and efficiency, time to market, and the complexity on the business side for manufacturing.”
How do you see chiplet-based processor packaging playing into the future success of the US semiconductor industry? “For different components of my system, I may choose to make one chiplet in one technology node and a second chiplet in another technology node because they offer different advantages from a technology perspective. The opportunity with advanced packaging of chiplet technology is you can integrate multiple heterogeneous chiplets together; they can come from different fabs. It’s very cool.
“Then you put it into a layer called an interposer and that’s something you use to glue the chiplets together and also communicate between them. So it gives them channels and wires to talk back and forth. When you do that, you can produce very sophisticated designs that can take advantage of the best options in the market.
“It’s also supportive of an ecosystem where a company like Efficient, can produce a chiplet — the biggest value in our design — and distribute that broadly. In the old days, even today, the way that typically happens is by selling licenses to the IP inside of your chip. So, that means I talk to a customer developing a chip and I can sell them design code resources and resources to use our architecture.
“Chiplets change the game. They say we can now produce a piece of hardware and sell that as a bare die off the manufacturing line, and you can integrate that into your heterogeneous chiplet-based product. So, it supports this innovation ecosystem where you can have many suppliers of chiplets with different capabilities and you can have a much simpler integration path. That path is emerging and it’s a very important piece of the innovation ecosystem moving forward.”
An example of a chiplet-based semiconductor where multiple smaller processors can work in tandem to address varying applications that are all tied together to serve a single purpose.
Shutterstock/Pete Hansen
How do sustainability efforts factor into the future of semiconductor production? “There are several dimensions to sustainability when it comes to manufacturing and operating semiconductors. The first is carbon emissions [which is] wrapped up in production and distribution of semiconductor parts. In the academic research, we call that the embodied system in production. That’s all the carbon emissions accounted for in the production and distribution.
“Then you have operational carbon emissions. This gets a lot of attention in the media because of the enormous amounts of energy that go into running data centers handling AI functions. So, you have those two categories and any system represents a point in the tradeoff of the space between those. You can produce more specialized chips that increase the amount of embodied carbon. You have special purpose accelerators for every function of AI you may want to do in a data center. Each of them would have potentially higher speed and efficiency, so that decreases their operational carbon.
“But the embodied carbon in a system that has that many chips is higher because we had to design, manufacture and distribute each of those different designs, and so the costs go up.”
Which semiconductor manufacturer has the best chance of re-shoring its manufacturing in the US? “I think there [are] a lot of interesting things going on inside Intel right now. I think they’re at an important moment in their existence. I think they’re pushing innovation in trying to develop what I think is the next generation and the generation after that in retail foundry services and manufacturing tech nodes. The conversation tends to turn toward their 18A node, which is a very advanced tech node. I think that will be a big win when Intel stands up manufacturing in the US. That turns into a roadmap for the future.
“Then you can’t have [that] conversation without talking about TSMC in the southwest with their massive fabrication implantation effort going on there. When that comes online, that will bring some of most advanced tech nodes that exist today to domestic production, and that’s important for a variety of reasons. I think over next few years the onshoring of semiconductor manufacturing for defense and security applications will be very important given the geopolitical state of the world today.”
Brandon Lucia holds one of his company’s prototype chips.
Brandon Lucia
Trump wants the federal government to put tariffs on overseas semiconductor makers who ship their products to the US instead of funding companies to incentivize chips manufacturing here. Do you agree? “I think in order to answer that question, I’d have to be more tied into the function of government and the foundation for the tariffs. What I can say is both are approaches attempt to get at the same end point.
“I think getting the resources in to support the semiconductor manufacturing industry is incredibly important. Those are two ways to do that, but there are many other ways to grow the domestic ecosystem through policy, industry efforts and advanced packaging techniques.
“Regardless of the mechanism, I think the need is there. I think what we need are resources to do basic research and take those ideas and put them into innovative start-up companies, even in support of incumbent [companies] in expanding their efforts in advanced manufacturing and foundries. Again, we’re seeing that with Intel and their 18A chip and TSMC nodes that will be manufactured in the southwest.
What kind of a thriving ecosystem is needed to support a healthy domestic semiconductor industry? “I have a strong belief in fundamental research in academia and industry as a driver of this. You have successful examples in some of the bigger companies with research arms and many examples of big ideas emerging from more basic research that happens in academia settings.
“It’s really driven economically, but also by things like the National Science Foundation directly supporting early-stage research that can be 10 years out from commercialization of a product sometimes. Much of what we’re doing at Efficient…was funded through the National Science Foundation. It goes back almost a decade.
“The other leg here is a thriving ecosystem of start-ups and an environment in which they can grow and produce value. You put all those things together and it’s a very big roadmap to how we could revolutionize the semiconductor industry. We can do fabrication of advanced nodes and packaging. This a la carte idea allows for new markets to emerge around this chiplet packaging technology.
“Then you have the ability for a startup to launch in a straightforward way to bring technology like that to market. Over a five-year window, a company could emerge and tap into all that research and tap into fabrication and manufacturing ecosystem to produce something that’s really new and has a lot of value.
“This is really our origin story. We came from the result of research that went on for nearly a decade. We realized we were doing something new that was untapped in the market today.”
Is your company’s design based on chiplets? “Right now, ours is not a chiplet-based design. In the future, we see a big opportunity for going into Chiplet integration. Our architecture is called Fabric and it’s a way of mapping computation in space across computing resources implemented in a chip. The basic idea is we have our architecture and it’s scalable to include more computing resources, and without decreasing efficiency, we can increase the performance in a chip.
“With chiplet technology, we can have multiple chiplets on our fabric architected together, which is a big opportunity for us to scale up from where we are today, which is focused on embedded applications and things like infrastructure, and wearables and space and defense applications. We can scale up further toward the edge, maybe even edge-cloud and, some day, data center applications.”
If you’ve read this column for long, you probably know that when it comes to tech purchases — and tech decisions in general, really — I’m typically not one to be hasty.
It’s practically in my blood at this point. I’ve spent so many years studying, researching, and obsessing over this stuff (both personally and professionally!) that it’s tough for me to commit to buying a new product or even using a new service without really digging in and thinking through the implications.
Plain and simple, I like to feel confident that whatever I’m using is not only “the best” in some broad, general sense — but is, critically, the best for me and my specific work purposes. It’s the same thing I encourage everyone else to do, too, when considering new tech twists and turns (whether via my own recommendations or any other source).
That’s why I really surprised myself when I happened to be walking through a Best Buy the other day and ended up walking out with a brand spankin’ new $600 laptop — a Chromebook, to be specific.
But Goog almighty, am I ever glad I made that uncharacteristically fast decision.
I’ve personally owned and relied on Google’s precious Pixelbook since that device’s debut in 2017. While I’d had plenty of other ChromeOS vessels before it, the Pixelbook was the first Chromebook I truly fell for — thanks to its rare combination of power, practicality, and design. The device’s sleek and minimalist form and in-a-league-of-its-own keyboard made it a singular treat to use and served as the perfect match for the more-than-capable computing power inside.
The Google Pixelbook Chromebook, released in 2017.
Google
For years, the Pixelbook left me with little to ask for. But despite the fact that the laptop is still technically being supported with regular ongoing ChromeOS updates — and will continue to be all the way through August of 2027 (!) — the system has more recently started showing its age.
I’ve been thinking about a replacement for it for a while now. But while I’ve tried out tons of perfectly capable and decent Chromebook options, I’ve yet to find one that really speaks to me and stands out in the same way.
The reason, I’ve come to realize, is that more and more, current Chromebooks are mostly about being good enough. For most people and purposes — whether businesses, schools, or just budget-conscious individual device-buyers — that’s perfectly fine and probably makes a lot of sense. But for those of us who place an emphasis on design and device quality both inside and out, the options have been a little lackluster lately. And so despite my motivation to find a suitable replacement for my rapidly aging Pixelbook, nothing I’ve considered had quite fit the bill.
At least, that was the case — until an alluring new digital vixen caught my eye. And, as you’ve no doubt realized by now, it didn’t take long to realize it was the one I’d been waiting for.
ChromeOS, take 2: My next Chromebook chapter
I’d been intrigued by the new Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus since I first heard about it ahead of its arrival this autumn. But it wasn’t until I spent several minutes with the system in a physical store that I realized just how special it actually was — and how much it filled the void I’d been seeking to satisfy since my poor Pixelbook started growing a little rusty.
So, first things first: The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus is far less clunky than its awkward name suggests. It’s sleek and almost shockingly minimal in its design — with an eye-catchingly subtle blue casing and an understated Samsung logo on the outer cover but no branding of any sort on the inside. (One of my biggest tech-nerd pet peeves is paying hundreds of dollars for a device and then being forced to stare at an ugly company tramp stamp right atop or beneath the screen for every second that I use the damn thing.)
Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus is refreshingly sleek and free from over-the-top branding.
Samsung
That alluring appearance is definitely what drew me in. But the way the Chromebook feels is what ultimately won me over.
No two ways around it: The Galaxy Chromebook Plus is a skinny fella. This thing is thin in a way I haven’t experienced on a laptop since — well, the Pixelbook.
Thin is in with Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus.
JR Raphael, IDG
In a sharp-as-can-be contrast to the typical utilitarian Chromebook of our current moment, the Galaxy Chromebook Plus feels light and luxurious. It’s a body that makes you want to carry and, dare I say, caress it constantly. All over-the-top tenderness aside, it’s a premium computer through and through and the closest thing I’ve seen to a spiritual successor to Google’s fading Pixelbook star.
Now, do all those surface-level superficialities matter, you might ask? As with so many things in the tech decision-making matrix, the answer depends entirely on you. Some people are perfectly satisfied with a utilitarian tech approach and knowing that their laptop has what counts on the inside — and hey, that’s okay! But some of us also appreciate the design and form and how those factors affect the overall experience of carrying and using a device.
And my goodness, when it comes to the Galaxy Chromebook Plus, is that experience ever exceptional.
The sweet surprise of Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus
No exaggeration: Samsung’s Galaxy Chromebook Plus is just a delight to work on — a true treat that makes you want to carry it everywhere and never put it down. The display is an AMOLED panel, which results in richer colors and deeper blacks than most standard laptop screens, and the 15.6″ display size is such a pleasant change after years of squeezing into smaller laptop dimensions. That arrangement also includes the side perk of a larger, less cramped keyboard, complete with a number pad at the right.
Even the keyboard is unusually roomy on the Galaxy Chromebook Plus.
Samsung
All in all, the Galaxy Chromebook feels lavishly spacious, and the slim frame keeps it from seeming at all bulky or even the least bit unwieldy. The whole “thin” race can slide into silly territory quickly, but I’m tellin’ ya: This laptop’s slimness is such a sweet surprise and something you really do appreciate. It’s an absolute pleasure to use — and, provided your budget can support it, adding that pinch of pleasure into your workday can make a world of difference when it comes both quality of life and productivity.
I’m also happy to share that the qualities of the Galaxy Chromebook that gave me pause early on haven’t proven to be particularly problematic in real-world use:
I worried that the system’s 8GB of RAM might be insufficient for my multitasking-heavy, resource-intensive style of work — but so far, at least, the computer’s been quite capable of handling anything I throw at it.
As reported, Samsung has been permitted to preload some of its own apps on the Chromebook — something that hasn’t traditionally been permitted in the ChromeOS ecosystem — but outside of the presence of a single preinstalled Samsung Notes app (which, thankfully, can easily be removed), there hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary or concerning.
And while Google’s move to replace the signature ChromeOS Launcher/Search/Everything key with a weird new Gemini-connected “Quick Insert” key still strikes me as misguided, it’s an easy enough change to work around for anyone in the know. In fact, a quick tweak of the system keyboard settings is all it takes to restore the Launcher key to its proper position and to bump “Quick Insert” down to the keyboard’s bottom row, in a newly added “G” key that seems like a much more sensible spot.
The Search/Launcher/Everything key can be returned to its proper place with a couple quick clicks in the ChromeOS settings.
JR Raphael, IDG
After growing accustomed to having a convertible Chromebook that sports a touchscreen, I’d also been hesitant to go with a model that’s more of a traditional clamshell form without any touch capabilities. But over the past year or so, I’ve added a Pixel Tablet into my personal tech lineup and started relying on that for more casual video-watching and other such “lean-back”-style activity. This has pushed the laptop back into a more narrowly defined role of active keyboard-involving work for me, and consequently, I don’t find myself missing the touch and converting factors much at all — certainly nowhere near what I would’ve expected if I’d considered this same shift a couple years ago.
The only big question lingering in my mind now is what’s in the cards for ChromeOS from a longer-term perspective. As you may have read, rumors suggest Google could be looking at essentially replacing ChromeOS with Android — yes, again — or at least replacing it with some future version of Android that’s designed to provide a similar sort of desktop-friendly computing experience.
But regardless, if such a move ends up happening — and to be clear, that’s still a hefty “if” at this point — it’s almost certainly still years away. For now, I very much enjoy using ChromeOS in its current form. This laptop is guaranteed ongoing operating system updates through June of 2032, at a minimum, and one has to imagine that if Google were to start bringing a future Android version into Chromebooks down the line, it’d phase that change in gradually and avoid or at least make optional any sort of dramatic switch in how existing devices operate.
Long story short, I’m not too worried about what ChromeOS (or whatever we’re calling it) might look like a decade from now. If it stays the current course — hey, cool. I’m content! If an enticing option comes along to shift over to a more Chromebook-like version of Android in the future, maybe that could be interesting, too. For the moment, though, I couldn’t be happier with the laptop I’m using.
And, remember: This is coming from someone who had been stubbornly hanging onto his aging Pixelbook and refusing to accept any of the alternatives that had come along in the years since.
For now, this Chromebook is the one to beat. And this is the first time in a long time I’ve felt fully confident saying that — confident enough to pick up this system myself and happily head home with it the very same day I touched it for the first time.
The Competition Bureau of Canada has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the tech giant of abusing its dominant position in the online advertising technology market to stifle competition and harm advertisers, publishers, and consumers.
The case, filed with the Competition Tribunal, is the latest in a series of global legal challenges targeting Google’s advertising practices.
The Bureau announced on Thursday that it had filed an application with the Competition Tribunal, seeking an order that would compel Google to sell two of its advertising technology tools and impose a penalty to ensure compliance with Canadian competition laws.
“The Competition Bureau conducted an extensive investigation that found that Google has abused its dominant position in online advertising in Canada by engaging in conduct that locks market participants into using its own ad tech tools, excluding competitors, and distorting the competitive process,” Commissioner of Competition Matthew Boswell said in a statement.
According to the watchdog, Google holds the largest market share across Canada’s ad tech stack and has “abused its dominant position” to entrench its market power.
Allegations of market abuse
The Bureau’s investigation alleges that Google has entrenched its dominance across the ad tech stack — a suite of tools that facilitates the buying and selling digital ad inventory. The Bureau asserts that Google unlawfully tied its ad tech tools together and leveraged its dominant position to distort auction dynamics. These actions reportedly forced market participants to rely on Google’s ecosystem, excluded competitors, and disrupted fair competition.
“Google’s conduct has prevented rivals from being able to compete on the merits of what they have to offer, to the detriment of Canadian advertisers, publishers, and consumers. We are taking our case to the Tribunal to stop this conduct and its harmful effects in Canada,” Boswell added.
The Bureau further claims that Google gave its own tools preferential access to advertising inventory, manipulated pricing to disadvantage rivals, and imposed restrictive terms on publishers transacting with competing platforms.
The Competition Bureau has asked the Tribunal to order Google to divest two of its ad tech tools, impose penalties to ensure compliance with Canada’s Competition Act and prohibit the company from continuing anti-competitive practices.
The Bureau’s investigation, which began in 2013, initially focused on Google’s search engine practices but expanded earlier this year to include its advertising technology services.
A request seeking comment from Google remains unanswered.
Parallel cases in the US and India
The Canadian lawsuit echoes similar antitrust challenges Google is facing globally, including in the US. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) recently concluded closing arguments in its antitrust case against Google, accusing the company of illegally dominating the online advertising market.
In its trial, the DOJ alleged that Google monopolized key ad tech markets, including publisher ad servers and advertiser ad networks, and sought to dominate ad exchanges. Prosecutors argued that Google’s practices “rigged the rules of the road,” preventing fair competition. Google countered by emphasizing the competitiveness of the online ad market and dismissed the DOJ’s claims as mischaracterizations of legitimate business decisions.
Meanwhile, in India, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Thursday ordered a probe into Google’s restrictive policies for real-money gaming apps. The investigation follows a complaint from the gaming platform WinZO, which accused Google of discriminatory practices by excluding it from the Google Play Store while allowing competitors.
In 2022, the Indian authority imposed a monetary penalty of around $300 million on the search engine major for various anti-competitive practices.
A global spotlight on Google’s practices
Earlier this month the US DOJ has recommended extensive measures to limit Google’s dominance, including the potential breakup of its Chrome browser and Android operating system. These products are pivotal distribution platforms for Google Search, which was deemed an illegal monopoly in Federal Judge Amit Mehta’s August ruling.
These cases collectively highlight the increasing scrutiny of Google’s practices worldwide as regulators seek to address concerns about its dominance across various markets, including online advertising, app ecosystems, and gaming platforms.
For Google, the stakes remain high, as these lawsuits could lead to significant penalties, structural changes to its business, and a precedent for regulating Big Tech. With competition watchdogs ramping up their efforts globally, the outcomes of these cases could reshape the digital advertising landscape for years to come.
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft, scrutinizing its cloud computing, software licensing, cybersecurity, and AI businesses.
The inquiry follows over a year of informal interviews with competitors and business partners, Bloomberg reported. FTC antitrust lawyers have sent Microsoft a detailed information demand, spanning hundreds of pages, after receiving approval from FTC Chair Lina Khan, the report said quoting sources familiar with the matter.
In the second week of November, Computer World reported that the FTC was preparing to investigate the business practices of Microsoft. The allegations were on whether Microsoft is abusing its market dominance by deploying restrictive licensing terms, which is not a fair practice.
Focus on market dominance and security practices
The investigation centers on Microsoft’s bundling of office productivity and security software with its cloud services, a practice critics argue disadvantages competitors in the authentication and cybersecurity markets. The FTC is particularly examining Microsoft Entra ID, its user authentication service, amid complaints that licensing terms and integration with its cloud offerings impede rival companies.
Microsoft’s role as a major government contractor and recent cybersecurity incidents involving its products have added urgency to the probe. The company provides billions of dollars in services to US agencies, including the Department of Defense, making its practices critical to national security.
In November 2023, FTC flagged concerns about the concentrated nature of the cloud market, warning that outages or performance issues could ripple through the economy. The authority had then collected feedback from civil society, industry stakeholders, and academia to prepare its report. As per the feedback, the majority of the concerns were related to competition and licensing practices.
The investigation is among the final actions of Lina Khan, who has led one of the FTC’s most aggressive campaigns against corporate consolidation in decades. Khan is expected to step down as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office though there is no official confirmation yet.
Trump’s regulatory stance remains unclear, but his administration could mark a shift from President Joe Biden’s focus on reining in Big Tech. Under Biden, the FTC pursued cases against Amazon and Meta, while the Department of Justice sued Google and Apple.
This renewed scrutiny comes more than 25 years after the government’s landmark antitrust case against Microsoft over bundling its Windows operating system and browser, which ended without a breakup.
The FTC’s investigation could have far-reaching implications for the tech giant’s market practices and the broader cloud and cybersecurity sectors.
There are important accounts to secure, and then there are important accounts to secure. Your Google account falls into that second category, maybe even with a couple of asterisks and some neon orange highlighting added in for good measure.
I mean, really: When you stop and think about how much stuff is associated with that single sign-in — your email, your documents, your photos, your files, your search history, maybe even your contacts, text messages, and location history, if you use Android — saying it’s a “sensitive account” seems like an understatement. Whether you’re using Google for business, personal purposes, or some combination of the two, you want to do everything you possibly can to keep all of that information locked down and completely under your control.
And guess what? Having a password that you hastily set seven years ago isn’t enough. With something as priceless as your personal data, that single key is only the start of a smart security setup. And even it might be due for an upgrade.
Take 10 minutes to go through these steps, then rest easy knowing your Google account is as guarded as can be.
Part I: Reinforce your front door
Step 1: Check up on your Google account password
We’ll start with something simple but supremely important — that aforementioned Google account password. Consider the following questions:
Is your Google password based on your name, the name of your partner or child, your birthday, your street address, or anything else someone could easily figure out by Googling you?
Does your Google password revolve around a common word or easily guessable pattern?
Is your Google password short — less than eight characters, at a minimum?
Do you use your Google password (or any variation of it) to sign into any other app, website, or service?
If the answer to any of those questions is yes, first, bop yourself firmly on the nose. Then use this link to go change your password immediately — preferably to something long, complex, and not involving any easily discoverable personal info, any common words or patterns, or anything you use anywhere else.
Step 2: Give your Google account a second layer of protection
No matter how strong your Google account password is, there’s always still the chance someone could crack it — but you can exponentially reduce the risk of anyone actually getting into your virtual property by enabling two-factor authentication on your account.
With two-factor authentication, you’ll be prompted for a second form of security in addition to your password — ideally something that requires a physical object that’d only ever be in your presence. In its simplest effective form, that could be a prompt or a code generated by your phone. If you want to get really fancy, it could be a button pressed on an actual key you carry (which could be a special USB- or Bluetooth-based dongle or even something built into your phone) — sometimes even called a “passkey,” which is basically just a confusing and overcomplicated way to say the same thing. There’s also an option to have codes sent to you via text message, but that method is relatively easy to hijack and thus not generally advisable to use.
Whatever path you choose, having that second layer in place will make it incredibly difficult for anyone to get into your Google account, even if they do somehow know your password.
Two-factor authentication makes it significantly more difficult for anyone to get into your Google account.
Step 3: Make sure you’re prepared to prove your identity
If Google ever detects some sort of suspicious activity on your account, it might require you to verify your identity before it lets you sign in. And if you haven’t looked at your account verification settings in a while (or ever, for that matter), there’s a decent chance the necessary info might be out of date or missing altogether.
Take a minute now to open up Google’s account security site and look in the section labeled “How you sign in to Google.” There, among other things, you should see two options:
Recovery phone
Recovery email
If the value next to either option is not current and correct, click it and update it immediately.
And with that, we’re ready to move on to our next level of Google account protection.
Part II: Clamp down on connections
Step 4: Review the third-party services with access to your account
When you set up an app that interacts with Google in some way — on your phone, on your computer, or even within a Google service such as Gmail or Docs — that app gets granted a certain level of access to your Google account data.
Depending on the situation, that could mean it’s able to see some of your activity within specific Google services; it could mean it’s able to see everything in your Gmail, Google Calendar, or Google Drive; or it could mean it’s able to see everything across your entire Google account.
It’s all too easy to click through confirmation boxes without giving it careful thought — so look back now and see exactly what apps have access to what types of information. Visit Google’s third-party app access overview and look through the list of connected services. If you see anything there you no longer use or don’t recognize, click its line and then click the button to remove it.
Review your third-party app list and remove any items that no longer need access to your Google account.
JR Raphael / IDG
Allowing apps you know and trust to access your account is perfectly fine, but you want to be sure to revisit the list regularly and keep it as current and concise as possible.
Step 5: Review the devices with access to your account
In addition to apps, you’ve almost certainly signed into your Google account on a variety of physical devices over the past several months (and beyond). And often, once you’ve signed in at the system level, a device remains connected to your account and able to access it — no matter how long it’s been since you’ve actually used the thing.
You can close that loop and take back control by going to Google’s device activity page. If you see any device there that you no longer use or don’t recognize, click the three-dot menu icon within its box and sign it out of your account right then and there.
Step 6: Look over app permissions on your phone
Another important app-related consideration: If you’re using Android, some system-level permissions — such as those connected to your contacts and calendar — can effectively control access to areas of your Google account data, since services such as Google Contacts and Google Calendar sync that data between your phone and the cloud.
Head into the Security & Privacy section of your phone’s system settings and look for the line labeled “Permission manager.” (Depending on your device, you might have to tap a line labeled “Privacy controls” before you see it.) If you can’t find it, try searching your system settings for the phrase permission manager instead.
Once you get there, you can look through each type of permission and see which apps are authorized to access it — and, with a couple more taps, revoke the permission from any apps where that level of access doesn’t seem necessary.
Android makes it easy to review and adjust an app’s permission, if you know where to look.
JR Raphael / IDG
Step 7: Look over extension permissions in your browser
On the desktop, extensions added into Chrome or any other browser have the potential to expand your browser’s capabilities — but they also have the potential to put your privacy at risk.
Extensions could require access to anything from your complete browsing history to your system clipboard. They can often read and change data on sites you’re actively viewing, too — either any and all sites or only specific pertinent URLs, depending on the specific permissions requested.
None of this is necessarily bad, so long as the extension in question is reputable and requesting only the permissions it genuinely requires for the function it provides. But sometimes, even the most well-intending developers can get lazy and go with a broader permission than what their software actually needs. And in such an instance, an extension that does something as simple as enhancing the Gmail interface or allowing you to save articles for later could have access to everything you do in your browser — and the sort of broad data that’s typically kept under lock and key inside your Google account could be shared with external entities for no good reason.
So let’s do a quick little assessment, shall we? If you’re using Chrome, type chrome:extensions into your browser’s address bar. If you’re using another browser, look in its main menu to find the equivalent option for managing extensions or add-ons, as they’re sometimes also called.
Once you’re looking a list of all your installed extensions, click the “Details” or “Options” button for every extension on the page. Peek at the “Permissions” section within each one and then take a close look at the “Site access” section, in particular. Think carefully about the level of access that’s granted there and whether it’s genuinely needed — or whether it’d make sense to bring it down a notch and make it more limited in nature.
With Chrome and other Chrome-based browsers — like Microsoft Edge and Vivaldi — if the extension seems like it really only needs access to a specific site or domain and it’s requesting access to your activity on all sites, click the dropdown menu in that area and change its setting from “On all sites” to “On specific sites” (which lets you provide a specific, limited list of URLs on which the extension will have full visibility).
Chrome and other Chrome-based browsers make it easy to view and adjust the permissions for any browser extension you’re using.
JR Raphael / IDG
Just remember that many extensions do legitimately need certain levels of access in order to operate — so make these changes cautiously and only after carefully thinking through the potential implications. Worst-case scenario, though, if you bring an extension’s access down and then find it’s no longer working as expected, you can always come back to this same area of your browser’s settings later and change it back.
Firefox, incidentally, doesn’t allow this level of granular permission-granting — so if you find an extension there is accessing more than you’re comfortable with, your only real option is to uninstall it entirely.
Speaking of which…
Step 8: Get rid of any mobile apps and browser extensions you don’t need
While you’re thinking about third-party add-ons for your computer and phone, take a moment to review everything you have installed on both fronts and consider how many of those programs you actually still use. The fewer cracked windows you allow on your Google account, the better — and if you aren’t even using something, there’s no reason to keep it connected.
And with that, we’re ready for our final two parts of account-protecting possibilities.
Part III: Plan for the worst
Step 9: Set up or confirm your virtual Google will
Thinking about worst-case scenarios is never particularly pleasant — I’d much rather be eating crumpets, myself — but just as it’s important to have a plan in place for your physical and financial possessions, creating a virtual will for your Google account will make matters infinitely easier for your loved ones if and when you ever develop a mild case of death.
For company-managed Google Workspace accounts, someone at your organization would be able to take control of your account in the event that you were no longer able to access it. But with an individual Google account, no such system for passing along access exists.
Google has a simple system in place to manage this: Open up the Inactive Account Manager, and you’ll find tools for determining exactly what should happen if your account ever becomes inactive for a certain period of time. You can specify the number of months that must go by without any sign of your presence, along with the email addresses and phone numbers Google should use to contact you for confirmation. And then, you can give Google the email addresses of any people you want to be notified once it’s clear that you’re no longer available.
From there, you can specify exactly what types of information your chosen contacts will be able to access. You’ll even be able to leave a message for those people, if you want, and optionally create a broad autoreply that’ll be sent to anyone who emails you once your inactive period has begun (creepy!).
Google’s Inactive Account Manager is like a virtual estate planning tool for all of your account-associated data.
JR Raphael / IDG
Even if you’ve gone through this process before, it’s worth going back in and revisiting your preferences occasionally to confirm the info is all still complete and accurate — not only in the specific contacts you have set to be notified but also in what specific areas of your account those people will be able to access, if this situation ever actually arises.
For that latter piece of the puzzle, be sure to click the pencil-shaped icon next to the email address of each person you have listed. After you confirm their address, that’ll show you a list of account-related areas — everything from Contacts and Calendar to Google Chat, Google Photos, and even your location history (if you’re using a device that contributes to such a collection).
Virtually every time I’ve ever looked at that, I’ve found a handful of newer account-related areas weren’t selected to be shared — presumably because they didn’t exist when I had last reviewed the options. I had to manually check them all to be sure they’d be included in any post-consciousness account sharing.
Part IV: Turn your protection up to the max
Step 10: Think about Google’s Advanced Protection Program
Last but not least is a step that won’t be right for everyone but could be hugely consequential for certain types of Google users. For anyone at a higher risk of a targeted attack, Google offers an elevated form of account security called the Advanced Protection Program.
The program is described as being appropriate for business leaders, IT admins, activists, journalists, and anyone else who’s in the public eye and likely to be sought out by someone looking to do damage. It puts a series of heavy-duty restrictions on your Google account to make it especially difficult for anyone else to gain access — but as a result, it also makes things a bit more difficult for you.
The core part of the Advanced Protection Program is a requirement to have a physical security key the first time you sign into your account on any new device. That means in addition to your password, you’ll need that specific form of two-factor authentication — either an approved key built into your phone or a standalone dongle — in order to access your email, documents, or any other area of your Google account.
As part of the added security, you also won’t be able to connect most third-party apps to your Google account — including those that require access to your Gmail or Google Drive in order to operate. That could create some challenges (such as signing into an Android TV device, curiously enough) and require some compromises (such as no longer being able to use most third-party email clients with Gmail). And if you ever can’t get into your account for any reason, you’ll have to go through an extra-involved, multiday recovery process in order to restore access. You can read more about what the Advanced Protection Program is like to live with in this thoughtful overview.
Ultimately, only you can decide if the added inconveniences are worth the extra assurance. If you want the utmost in security for your Google account, though — and particularly if you’re someone who’s at a higher-than-average risk of being targeted — it’s something well worth considering.
If you do want to make the leap and add this extra layer of intense security onto your Google account, head over to Google’s Advanced Protection Program website to get started. With a personal account, you’ll be able to get yourself up and running in a matter of minutes. With an account that’s part of a paid company Workspace plan, your plan administrator will have to enable Advanced Protection for the organization before you’re able to do it. Once you start the enrollment process, you’ll see pretty quickly if it’s already available for your account or not — and if not, you can contact your company admin to ask about the possibility of allowing it.
And with that, give yourself a pat on the back: Now that these 10 steps are behind you, your Google account security is officially in tiptop shape — and you shouldn’t have to devote an ounce of thought to this area again anytime soon.
Just set yourself a reminder to revisit this page and review the steps within it once a year for good measure. (I’ll continue to update and expand the specific instructions as needed over time.) Do the same with security smarts in other areas — like your Android security settings, if you’re using an Android device of any sort — and then rest easy knowing your most important digital info is as secure as it can possibly be.
This article was originally published in February 2020 and updated in November 2024.
Intel’s $7.86 billion subsidy agreement with the US government imposes strict conditions on the company’s ability to divest stakes in its chipmaking division if the unit becomes independent.
In a recent securities filing, Intel disclosed that it must maintain at least 50.1% ownership of Intel Foundry if the division is spun off as a privately held entity.
If the unit goes public and Intel is no longer the largest stakeholder, the sale of stakes to any single investor would be limited to 35%.
This follows Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s September announcement to spin off the company’s chip production division into an independent subsidiary aimed at securing independent funding and optimizing capital structure.
Earlier this week, the US Commerce Department finalized a $7.86 billion subsidy for Intel, reduced from the $8.5 billion announced in March.
This comes as Intel faces heightened scrutiny over its financial challenges, compounded by intensifying competition from AMD and Nvidia in the AI chip market and recent workforce reductions.
Challenges ahead for Intel
The sale restrictions tied to the subsidy underscore the US intention to reinforce domestic semiconductor production under the CHIPS Act.
“The subsidy definitely comes with strings attached and is designed to ensure accountability for the recipient,” said Neil Shah, VP of research and partner at Counterpoint Research. “In this case, it’s Intel, and if a majority shareholder in the future decides not to comply or pivots to a strategy that doesn’t align with the goals of the US CHIPS Act, it could create significant issues.”
The challenge for Intel is securing consistent capital to sustain and grow its foundry business while keeping pace with rival TSMC’s heavy investments.
With its core businesses in PCs and servers underperforming – once key contributors to funding R&D and fabrication infrastructure – Intel’s ability to remain competitive has come under strain.
“The only way to raise capital is to spin off and secure new investors through an IPO or other means, which would dilute Intel’s stake,” Shah said. “To stay competitive, Intel needs to invest tens of billions of dollars annually. These restrictions could leave Intel stuck unless they manage to renegotiate terms with the US government.”
If Intel fails to remain competitive, customers may shift towards competitors like TSMC. This could lead to enterprises becoming more dependent on infrastructure and devices built with chips primarily produced by TSMC, further strengthening TSMC’s market position.
This shift could drive up chip prices, diminishing the purchasing power of enterprises and their equipment suppliers. It could also negatively impact US efforts to achieve leadership in semiconductor manufacturing.
“While such restrictions could enhance resilience against global supply chain disruptions and strengthen the US semiconductor ecosystem, it might come at the expense of slower scalability,” said Manish Rawat, semiconductor analyst at TechInsights.
Implications for enterprises
For enterprise customers, the restrictions bring both challenges and opportunities, according to Rawat. Intel’s limited access to external investors and potential delays in scaling its foundry operations could raise supply chain reliability concerns during peak demand.
“This could create uncertainties for customers relying on Intel for advanced manufacturing to meet their future technology needs,” Rawat said. “Additionally, concerns may arise over the foundry’s long-term strategic direction. If Intel Foundry’s ownership structure lacks the flexibility to adapt to market conditions, enterprise customers could experience disruptions in semiconductor supply reliability, particularly if Intel struggles to keep up with demand.”
On the other hand, a US-centric Intel Foundry could boost confidence among enterprises prioritizing supply chain security and adherence to “buy American” policies amid escalating geopolitical tensions. “This shift could also strengthen the domestic semiconductor supply chain, providing significant benefits, especially for industries involved in critical defense and national security-related applications,” Rawat added.
For the past two or three weeks, upstart social network Bluesky has been attracting large numbers of new users every day, a crowd that quite evidently includes many Apple device users — the app has at times topped Apple’s App Store charts in the run-up to Thanksgiving in the US. I’ve been using it for a little while and have collected a handful of hints and services that can optimize the experience for anyone migrating to the increasingly busy social network.
What’s interesting about Bluesky is that while it lacks some of the features you can find on other social sites, the conversation seems subjectively better and the lack of ads and sponsored posts — along with the absence of algorithmic recommendations from people you don’t want to hear from — make for a pleasant social media experience.
A place for friends?
One thing about the service is that it is a good internet citizen, which means it does not throttle outbound links and does not punish posters by reducing visibility of their posts simply for sharing them.
Among other things, this means traffic from the service to TheBoston Globe is already three times what that publication achieves from Threads. It also means the Globe is seeing significantly more of those readers converting to a subscription account.
In other words, while at roughly 22 million users, Bluesky remains a relatively small service. But the people using it appear to be actively doing so, which means it can generate decent traffic. That openness also means that data you share via the service is in the clear and can and will be picked up to train AI models and so on. There is no privacy there, and this should be clearly understood — everything you post is out in the open, so don’t share what you don’t want everyone to know. At the same time, by virtue of the service being so open, it can deliver an even better experience with the help from third-party tools and services like these.
Thread summaries
One thing we all used to use in X, thread summaries aren’t natively available on Bluesky, but you can use Skyview to quickly and easily create summaries. Just mention @skyview.social with “unroll” anywhere in a thread and receive a link to view/share the entire conversation. The downside might be that all the unroll requests end up being visible on Skyview’s account (though to be fair, everything you do is already stored somewhere on every social media service — it’s just that Skyview lets you see it, too).
Publish threads
Back in the olden days it was possible to publish entire conversations using a link from what was then Twitter. These turned up across numerous websites and within innumerable stories. Then it got switched off. The good news is that to some extent the good times are back. To turn a thread into a shareable web page use Skywriter.blue, which turns a Bluesky post URL into a shareable webpage. While this doesn’t yet work as an embed, it is at least now a page.
Mute a thread
You might need to know this in case you get involved in a conversation that blows up and you don’t want to receive additional alerts concerning it. To mute a thread, just tap the three dots on the right of any post in that thread and then choose “Mute Thread” from the options there. Additional tools you’ll find when you tap those three dots include:
Translate
Copy post text
Send via direct message
Share
Mute words & tags
Hide reply for me.
What lists are you on?
If you are interested in finding out what lists you are on, who you have blocked, and who has blocked you, visit clearsky.app, enter the relevant handle, and take a look.
Find more Starter Packs
You’ll find a directory of all Starter Packs — collections of recommended people to follow usually chosen to represent specific topics or subject areas — at Blueskydirectory.com. Explore here to find more collections from which to cherry-pick those you wish to follow, or just explore the comic genius of this Starter Pack about men called Geoff.
Starter Packs can become lists
BlueSky users are incredibly busy building Starter Packs. They cover multiple bases — independent book publishers, RStats Ecosystem Maintainers, dogs of Bluesky, for example — and are maintained and provided by volunteers. The idea is that you can visit these collections and select people you want to follow or follow the entire list. It’s a good way to build a solid selection of feeds for your interests.
Lists are another thing. Lists are groups of accounts that can be used to curate feeds, follow interests, and so on. You might use these to track your favorite writers, researchers, or other high-profile people you want to keep an eye on — that way you don’t need to follow them. The great thing about lists is that, unlike Starter Packs, you can choose to create a separate feed in your own window that follows posts from that list; I follow the BlueSky Team list, for example. This lets me monitor posts in that list without following more people.
But what if you want to turn a Starter Pack into a list, so you can create your own window to follow? You can! Just use the Pack2List web app, where you can paste the URL of that Starter Pack and choose to follow it as a list. That means that all the content in one of those Starter Packs can be made easily available on your account without you following each person on the list.
More people to follow
One quick way to find other like-minded souls might be to find people you do not yet follow who are followed by lots of people you do follow. You do this using the Bluesky network analyzer, which you’ll find right here.
Use Bluesky like Tweetdeck
Anyone out there with a memory that extends further than a few of months might remember Tweetdeck, the incredibly useful tool used by so many professionals to read and manage Tweets. Something very like it is now available to Bluesky users. Deck.Blue is an app you can connect to an account that lets you explore your “skeets’ in a multi-column layout, so you can monitor all your posts, posts from lists you follow, searches, notifications, hashtags — whatever you need. You can also use Deck.Blue to schedule posts, though this is currently a fee-based feature. The tool also works with Buffer, so you can monitor your LinkedIn, Mastodon, and Bluesky channels in one place.
Search tools
The search tools in Bluesky can help you in several ways, for example:
Find a specific phrase: Use quotes around keywords, such as “Austrian Airlines” to find skeets that include that phrase.
Hashtag search: Use any term with an # prefix to find any post with that tag.
Find people: You can search for posts that mention specific people using their Bluesky handle or use from: and a user handle to find all posts from a user.
URL: Paste in a URL to see all the posts that have shared that URL.
There are many more. Two additional third-party tools you should find useful are Skythread, which lets you search for a thread and comments using the thread link, and Label Scanner, which enables you to verify which labels have been applied to an account.
Alternative clients
Bluesky offers its own client, but the experience on an iPad is pretty bad. If you want to use the service on an iPad, take a look at Skeets, which is better and includes a host of additional features, some of which you must pay for. Other alternative Bluesky browsers include the aforementioned Deck.blue, SkyFeed, and SkeetDeck. There are more, and with millions migrating to the service, it is likely additional options will appear pretty swiftly for a while.
You will need an app password to make any of these services work. Rather than using your actual account password, I utterly urge you to create an auxiliary app password. You can use this to give the clients the access they need to work for you, while keeping your primary password secure. Finally, for even more insights into using Bluesky, visit this page.
A US federal judge indicated that the trial addressing the Department of Justice’s proposals to curb Google’s dominance in online search will proceed as scheduled in April 2025, even if DOJ officials under President-elect Donald Trump seek to revise the remedies.
The move signals the urgency in resolving the case, which could lead to a historic shake-up of the tech giant’s operations, Reuters reported.
US District Judge Amit Mehta, overseeing the case in Washington, confirmed Tuesday that the trial will proceed as scheduled despite potential changes in DOJ leadership and priorities under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
“If there is going to be a re-evaluation of the remedies that are being requested, it needs to be done quickly,” the report said quoting Judge Mehta from a hearing.
The DOJ has proposed sweeping remedies to curb Google’s influence, including a forced divestiture of its Chrome browser and potentially its Android operating system. Both products serve as critical distribution channels for Google Search, a service found to operate as an illegal monopoly in Mehta’s August ruling.
For context, Trump is likely to pursue ongoing lawsuits against Big Tech, several of which originated during his first term. However, his recent remarks expressing skepticism about a potential Google breakup underscore the significant influence he will wield in shaping the direction of these cases.
“If you do that (splitting Google), are you going to destroy the company? What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,” Trump said at an event in Chicago in October.
The Justice Department first filed the antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020, during former President Donald Trump’s first term. It accused Google of leveraging its dominance in search and advertising markets to stifle competition.
In August 2024, Mehta ruled that Google violated US antitrust laws, setting the stage for the ongoing debate over remedies. The DOJ under President Joe Biden proposed additional measures, including requiring Google to share search data with competitors, limiting investments in rival technologies, and restricting acquisitions of companies in search or query-based AI.
Google’s pushback and trial stakes
Google has sharply criticized the DOJ’s proposals, calling them “staggering” and warning that they could harm American technological leadership. The company argued that measures like forced divestitures and data-sharing mandates could weaken its competitive edge and disrupt the broader digital ecosystem.
“We’ve invested billions of dollars in Chrome and Android. Breaking them would change their business models, raise the cost of devices, and undermine competition with Apple,” Google said in a blog post in October.
The upcoming trial is expected to highlight the role of artificial intelligence in reshaping the online search landscape. Prosecutors plan to call witnesses from major AI players, including OpenAI, Perplexity, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms, to underscore the competitive challenges Google’s practices pose to innovation.
Political dynamics and antitrust implications
President-elect Trump, who expressed skepticism about a Google breakup, has yet to outline his administration’s stance on the DOJ’s proposals. However, Judge Mehta’s decision to maintain the trial timeline suggests limited patience for political recalibrations.
The case represents the most aggressive antitrust action against a tech company since the DOJ’s unsuccessful attempt to break up Microsoft two decades ago. If successful, the remedies could significantly alter the competitive dynamics in online search and advertising markets while setting a precedent for regulating the tech industry.
The trial remains a critical test of the federal government’s ability to rein in Silicon Valley’s most powerful players in an era where technology increasingly shapes global markets.
