Google: A Critic Looks in the Rear View Mirror and Risks a Collision with a Smart Service
May 21, 2025
No AI, just a dinobaby watching the world respond to the tech bros.
Courtney Radsch, a director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty, is not Googley. Her opinion about the Google makes this clear in “Google Broke the Law. It’s Time to Break Up the Company.”
. To which facet of the lovable Googzilla direct her attention. Picking one is difficult. Several of her points were interesting and in line with the intellectual stance of the Guardian, which ran her essay on April 24, 2025. Please, read the original write up and do contribute some money to the Guardian newspaper. Their strident pleas are moving, and I find their escalating way to say “donate” informative.
The first statement I circled was:
These global actions [the different legal hassles Googzilla faces with attendant fines and smarmy explanations] reflect a growing consensus: Google’s power is infrastructural and self-reinforcing. It controls the tools that decide what we know, what we see and who profits. The implications are especially acute for journalism, which has been hollowed out by Google’s ad market manipulation and search favoritism. In an era of generative AI, where foundation models are trained on the open web and commodify news content without compensation, this market power becomes even more perfidious.
The point abut infrastructure and self-reinforcing is accurate. I would point out that Google has been building out its infrastructure and the software “hooks” to make its services “self reinforcing.” The behavior is not new. What’s new is that it seems to be a surprise to some people. Where were the “real” journalists when the Google implemented its Yahoo-influenced advertising system? Where were the “real” journalists when Dr. Jeff Dean and other Googlers were talking and writing about the infrastructure “innovations” at the Google?
The second one was:
… global coordination should be built into enforcement.
I want to mention that “global coordination” is difficult at the present time. Perhaps if the “coordination” began 20 years ago, the process might be easier. Perhaps the author of the essay would like to speak with some people at Europol about the time and procedures required to coordinate to take down a criminal online operation. Tackling an outfit which is used by quite a few people for free is a more difficult, expensive, and resource intensive task. There are some tensions in the world, and the Google is going to have to pay some fines and possibly dump some of its assets to reduce the legal pressure being applied to the company. But Google has big bucks, and money has some value in certain circles. Coordination is possible in enforcement, but it is not exactly the magical spooky action at a distance some may think it is.
The third statement I drew a couple of lines under was:
The courts have shown that Google broke the law. Now, governments must show that the law still has teeth. That means structural remedies, not settlements. Transformation, not tinkering.
News flash. Google is as I type this sentence transforming. If you think the squishy world of search and the two way doors of online advertising were interesting business processes, I suggest one look closely at the artificial intelligence push at the Google. First, it is baked into to Google’s services. I am not sure users know how much Googliness its AI services have. That’s the same problem will looking at Google superficially as people did when the Backdoor was kicked open and the Google emerged. Also, the AI push has the same infrastructure game plan. Exactly who is going to prevent Google from developing its own chips and its next-generation computing infrastructure? Is this action going to come from regulators and lawyers? I don’t think so. These two groups are not closely associated with gradient descents, matrix mathematics, and semi-conductor engineering in my experience. Some individuals in these groups are, but many are users of Google AI, not engineers developing Google AI. I do like the T shirt slogan, “Transformation, not tinkering.”
In summary, I liked the editorial. I have one problem. Google has been being Googley for more than 20 years and now legal action is being taken for yesterday’s businesses at the company. The new Googzilla moves are not even on the essay writer’s, the Guardian’s, or the regulators’ radar.
Net net: Googzilla is rocking to tomorrow, not transformation. You don’t alter the DNA of Googzilla.
Stephen E Arnold, May 21, 2025
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