That "Lake America" is doing a hell of a lot of work for Google
ocdtrekkie
What an incredible miscarriage of justice. Make enough money and pay off enough politicians, and you can pretty much shoot people on the street in broad daylight.
paulpauper
what shocker . google has a long history of prevailing in court
CrzyLngPwd
So, essentially, a nothing burger. As usual.
GreenVulpine
https://archive.is/rlAbY Non-paywalled link
bunderbunder
More information on the specific remedies in the USDOJ announcement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-wins-signi... Sounds like it's not nothing, but also not much.
kerblang
I wonder if it would help to revoke patents that help google maintain its monopoly, assuming that's the case and it's doable by a judge/congress/someone? What exactly is the nature of its monopoly that moots competition? I was of understanding that it's more than just ads on google search results, isn't it?
JMiao
twenty billion walkin out the court buildin woo woo!
xp84
> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Can someone closer to GOOG explain this? The phrase "ad tech" seems to have a very specific meaning here. Does this 1% include all advertising around the Web? Basically all ad revenue outside of Google's own properties? The number is surprisingly low.
sensanaty
> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Uhhh, what? What kind of colorful accounting is this that they're pulling off?
spl757
I have no proof, but this just figures. It's entirely plausible that google gave some heavy-duty major dark money campaign donations and have used the return on their investment to avoid being broken up. Maybe I'm just cynical and the corporations and ultra-wealthy wouldn't really do anything like that all the time. They are ultra-greedy, though.
xahrepap
Slightly tangential thought: My belief is: legislation needs to either make it just as hard to merge two companies as it is to unmerge them, or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them. It's insane to me that for how often companies merge and cause competition issues, we effectively never see the opposite happen. I know there's a ceremonial approval for merging two companies (at least in the US), but it's just impossible to undo or prevent the damage.
paaloeye
Arguably tangential, but for how long more will Nvidia and CUDA avoid the US anti-trust?
shevy-java
The US judges lack courage here. This means they help Google power through with its de-facto monopoly. This is, interestingly, also against capitalism, since now you no longer have a truly free market; no real competition. It is just one giant blob contorlling (almost) everything. Every blind one sees how Google controls WAY too much. Youtube is part of Google too. It is a cash cow that excludes competitors.
2OEH8eoCRo0
> Google used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising.
siliconc0w
We should just progressively tax monopolies. Companies will break themselves up to compete, no decade long DOJ case needed.
godwinson__4-8
The United States government is fractured and can't get its act together. No one has a credible plan to solve this. Electing your preferred president doesn't solve a broken Senate and other structural problems. The presidency is likely to keep bouncing between parties that care as much (if not more) about undoing the previous four years as they do sketching out a coherent plan for the future four. How is wielding this weapon against our most innovative companies going to help the United States compete at scale against China? Scale is sort of required to do so. So if the government isn't going to be in the business of massive capex investment (the kind China subsidizes) well then you need massive private companies. The American peoples response to a future dictated by the terms of Chinese hegemony is break up the centers of American innovation? What do you think is keeping the capex cost manageable if it's not the government? How does Google work if you take away its cash cow? So many of you (I assume despite the complaining that > 99% of HN readers can afford it) need to just pay the $20 or whatever for YouTube premium if it's so terrible and get over yourselves. The tax your children will have to pay if the United States is reduced to a second rate power will be far greater. What's with people wanting free access to services and simultaneously offended by ads? I don't like them either but I understand it would be silly to think they should be free. They can be regulated or reformed in many ways, but the government should be highly restrained about cleaving apart companies. Just remember the powers you give the government today the next government will inherit, and it is not so easy for a party to maintain power for more than eight years. Meanwhile China is operating on government initiatives and sustained strategy on a timeline that spans decades. Companies need to be able to match this horizon without fear of whatever the new normal in Washington is every four years. The trend for the United States is not looking good.
mrandish
While I lament another monopolistic tech giant yet again dodging the most meaningful regulatory consequences of their actions, the more useful meta-question is how these behomoths are now so reliably skirting major enforcement like break-ups. It's not that judges have gone soft or just that the current admin is nerfing enforcement (though they are), this trend goes back much further. The biggest factor is that tech giants now 'pre-game' major anti-trust relevant actions through an internal compliance team staffed by former regulators. The result is the slam dunk smoking guns of 20 years ago are rare. Today's monopolists artfully push right up to the line between "red-handed" and "arguable". Then take measures to fuzz that line and kick up clouds of plausible deniability in the record. Imagine how hard it would be to convict an embezzler who was carefully coached during the crime by expert former prosecutors and forensic accountants.
shoopadoop
The $22M ballroom donation was a pretty sweet deal. https://patriot.university/knowledge-base/organizations/org-... "$22 million ballroom contribution — the largest single documented amount from any corporate donor — arising from a lawsuit settlement over YouTube’s content moderation decision to suspend Trump post-January 6. Settlement filed September 29, 2025, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Trump v. YouTube, LLC et al.)."
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Discussion Highlights (19 comments)
jordanb
That "Lake America" is doing a hell of a lot of work for Google
ocdtrekkie
What an incredible miscarriage of justice. Make enough money and pay off enough politicians, and you can pretty much shoot people on the street in broad daylight.
paulpauper
what shocker . google has a long history of prevailing in court
CrzyLngPwd
So, essentially, a nothing burger. As usual.
GreenVulpine
https://archive.is/rlAbY Non-paywalled link
bunderbunder
More information on the specific remedies in the USDOJ announcement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-wins-signi... Sounds like it's not nothing, but also not much.
kerblang
I wonder if it would help to revoke patents that help google maintain its monopoly, assuming that's the case and it's doable by a judge/congress/someone? What exactly is the nature of its monopoly that moots competition? I was of understanding that it's more than just ads on google search results, isn't it?
JMiao
twenty billion walkin out the court buildin woo woo!
xp84
> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Can someone closer to GOOG explain this? The phrase "ad tech" seems to have a very specific meaning here. Does this 1% include all advertising around the Web? Basically all ad revenue outside of Google's own properties? The number is surprisingly low.
sensanaty
> Google’s ad tech business brought in $30 billion last year, or about 8 percent of the revenue for its parent company, Alphabet. Its ad tech revenue has declined for 16 straight quarters, and analysts estimate it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s profit... “This is a business no one cares about" Uhhh, what? What kind of colorful accounting is this that they're pulling off?
spl757
I have no proof, but this just figures. It's entirely plausible that google gave some heavy-duty major dark money campaign donations and have used the return on their investment to avoid being broken up. Maybe I'm just cynical and the corporations and ultra-wealthy wouldn't really do anything like that all the time. They are ultra-greedy, though.
xahrepap
Slightly tangential thought: My belief is: legislation needs to either make it just as hard to merge two companies as it is to unmerge them, or make it just as easy to unmerge two companies as it is to merge them. It's insane to me that for how often companies merge and cause competition issues, we effectively never see the opposite happen. I know there's a ceremonial approval for merging two companies (at least in the US), but it's just impossible to undo or prevent the damage.
paaloeye
Arguably tangential, but for how long more will Nvidia and CUDA avoid the US anti-trust?
shevy-java
The US judges lack courage here. This means they help Google power through with its de-facto monopoly. This is, interestingly, also against capitalism, since now you no longer have a truly free market; no real competition. It is just one giant blob contorlling (almost) everything. Every blind one sees how Google controls WAY too much. Youtube is part of Google too. It is a cash cow that excludes competitors.
2OEH8eoCRo0
> Google used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising.
siliconc0w
We should just progressively tax monopolies. Companies will break themselves up to compete, no decade long DOJ case needed.
godwinson__4-8
The United States government is fractured and can't get its act together. No one has a credible plan to solve this. Electing your preferred president doesn't solve a broken Senate and other structural problems. The presidency is likely to keep bouncing between parties that care as much (if not more) about undoing the previous four years as they do sketching out a coherent plan for the future four. How is wielding this weapon against our most innovative companies going to help the United States compete at scale against China? Scale is sort of required to do so. So if the government isn't going to be in the business of massive capex investment (the kind China subsidizes) well then you need massive private companies. The American peoples response to a future dictated by the terms of Chinese hegemony is break up the centers of American innovation? What do you think is keeping the capex cost manageable if it's not the government? How does Google work if you take away its cash cow? So many of you (I assume despite the complaining that > 99% of HN readers can afford it) need to just pay the $20 or whatever for YouTube premium if it's so terrible and get over yourselves. The tax your children will have to pay if the United States is reduced to a second rate power will be far greater. What's with people wanting free access to services and simultaneously offended by ads? I don't like them either but I understand it would be silly to think they should be free. They can be regulated or reformed in many ways, but the government should be highly restrained about cleaving apart companies. Just remember the powers you give the government today the next government will inherit, and it is not so easy for a party to maintain power for more than eight years. Meanwhile China is operating on government initiatives and sustained strategy on a timeline that spans decades. Companies need to be able to match this horizon without fear of whatever the new normal in Washington is every four years. The trend for the United States is not looking good.
mrandish
While I lament another monopolistic tech giant yet again dodging the most meaningful regulatory consequences of their actions, the more useful meta-question is how these behomoths are now so reliably skirting major enforcement like break-ups. It's not that judges have gone soft or just that the current admin is nerfing enforcement (though they are), this trend goes back much further. The biggest factor is that tech giants now 'pre-game' major anti-trust relevant actions through an internal compliance team staffed by former regulators. The result is the slam dunk smoking guns of 20 years ago are rare. Today's monopolists artfully push right up to the line between "red-handed" and "arguable". Then take measures to fuzz that line and kick up clouds of plausible deniability in the record. Imagine how hard it would be to convict an embezzler who was carefully coached during the crime by expert former prosecutors and forensic accountants.
shoopadoop
The $22M ballroom donation was a pretty sweet deal. https://patriot.university/knowledge-base/organizations/org-... "$22 million ballroom contribution — the largest single documented amount from any corporate donor — arising from a lawsuit settlement over YouTube’s content moderation decision to suspend Trump post-January 6. Settlement filed September 29, 2025, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Trump v. YouTube, LLC et al.)."