When I moved into my first apartment of my own in the summer of 1980, one of the things I needed to get installed was a telephone. Back then, I didn’t have to look around much for one, because there was only one provider in town: Northwestern Bell. I signed up and in due course I was delivered a huge, massive, black rotary desk phone that I rented from Northwestern Bell, and I was able to make and receive calls. Unlike today, that was all you could do.
A few years later, the Bell System monopoly dissolved by the federal government. Since I was only 20 and had little idea of ​​what was really going on, I asked my older sister, who was then working as a sales rep for Bell’s Yellow Pages. She put it very simply: I would soon have a much wider choice of phones and services. It was an captivating case study; an venerable, dying, complacent monopoly collapsed, leading to a burst of innovation that was really good for the consumer and may actually have led in part to today’s cell phones and smartphones.
Something similar could now happen to a enormous Internet company — Google.
An attempt to dissolve Alphabet Inc.Google is one of the options offered by the Ministry of Justice This came after a landmark court ruling found that the company was monopolizing the online search market, people with knowledge of the deliberations say.
The move would be Washington’s first attempt to break up a company for illegal monopolization since unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago. Less drastic options would include forcing Google to share more data with rivals and measures to prevent the company from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, said the people, who asked not to be identified and spoke about private conversations.
Google, of course, is the 750-pound gorilla of the search engine world, and the company’s name has become a generic verb for searching for any information on the Internet. It’s a common phrase when someone says, “You want to know about (insert topic)? Then Google it.”
This phrase could soon be as obsolete as rotary dial telephones.
See also: Don’t go past Go: Federal Court rules that Google is an illegal monopoly
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This could happen, for example, with Google releasing the almost ubiquitous Android operating system. widely used in smartphones.
Divesting the Android operating system, which is used on about 2.5 billion devices worldwide, is one of the most frequently discussed actions by Justice Department lawyers, according to those familiar with the matter. In his ruling, Mehta noted that Google requires device makers to sign agreements to gain access to its apps, such as Gmail and the Google Play Store.
These agreements also require Google’s search widget and Chrome browser to be installed on devices in a way that makes them impossible to delete, effectively removing competition from other search engines, he noted.
To do this, I actually had to look at my own smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy. I remember having to sign in to Google to enable most of the phone’s features when I got it, and of course the Chrome browser and Google search app are on there, although I don’t think I’ve ever used either of them.
The breakup of Google, if it happens, could have consequences as dramatic as the Bell System. Like all the Baby Bells that sprung up in the early 1980s, a thousand Internet flowers may bloom – or they may not. But whatever happens, it looks like Google will no longer be the Internet-dominating behemoth that it is today.
Normally I am strongly opposed to government interference in the economy. Nevertheless, a lot of good came out of the breakup of the Bell System. A lot of good can come out of this too, but we can only speculate about that at the moment. But soon we may have a lot more options if we want to reach out and touch someone.
