As the DOJ takes aim at Google's dominance in online search, the case could trigger a historic breakup of the tech giant and send shockwaves across the AI and tech industries.
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A high-stakes showdown is underway in Washington, and it could change the future of big tech. The U.S. Department of Justice is taking on Google in a three-week hearing that could force the company to spin off its Chrome web browser. According to Virginia Tech's new media and communications technology expert James Ivory, the goal here is to rein in what the government believes, and what was ruled last summer to be, a monopoly over online search.
"This is as big an antitrust case as the world has ever seen ," says Ivory. "The Department of Justice is comparing the case to landmark antitrust cases such as those against the Bell telephone system and Standard Oil. If anything, Google is larger and perhaps more dominant in its industry than those companies were."
America's primary antitrust laws - the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890), Clayton Act (1914), and Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) - are more than a century old and far precede the tech era. "These laws have not been seriously tested in the tech industry in decades. The most recent attempt being a failed breakup of Microsoft 25 years ago. Cases such as this can be unpredictable and set massive legal precedents, because some of the key policies being applied and interpreted here are very old," says Ivory.
And it's not just about search engines or web browsers. Ivory stresses that what happens with Google could have ripple effects for Meta, which is in the middle of its own antitrust fight, and for the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence.
"This isn't just about Chrome," Ivory says. "The DOJ's actions could shape Google's entire role in the future of AI - and maybe the direction of the whole industry."
James Ivory is a professor of technical and scientific communication in the Virginia Tech Department of English. His primary research interests deal with social and psychological dimensions of new media and communication technologies, focusing on the content and effects of technological features of new entertainment media, such as video games. His expertise has been cited in The Washington Post and USA Today.