These are what you would call ‘Blockbuster’ legal cases going on in the world of Tech right now. Does anyone in gen Z even use the term Blockbuster anymore? Anyways…
The main takeaway here is that Google and Meta are in the middle of trying to prove that they haven’t manipulated the market and don’t have firm monopolies over certain sectors of tech. The problem is that they probably do
"In addition to depriving rivals of the ability to compete, this exclusionary conduct substantially harmed Google's publisher customers, the competitive process, and, ultimately, consumers of information on the open web," U.S. District Judge Brinkema
Now that doesn’t sound good at all does it? The part of the US government that makes sure companies follow the law and fair competition (the D.O.J.) is looking to at least force Google to sell off
- Google Ad Manager - Imagine you run a blog. Google Ad Manager helps you put ads on your site and find companies that want to advertise there. This means that it:
- Includes the Publisher Ad server - If someone from New York visits your blog, the ad server might show an ad for a local pizza place instead of one from California.
- Includes the Ad Exchange - Think of it like a stock market, but for ads. Advertisers bid to show their ads to people, and the highest bid wins.
The government (DOJ) is saying Google controls too much of the above ad business. Since it runs both the tools for showing ads and the marketplace for buying ads, that’s like being both the referee and a player in the same game. To fix that, the DOJ wants Google to sell off some parts.
Google is also currently in an antitrust case to sell off Chrome, and OpenAI has reportedly become interested in buying it if that happens
Meta
Meta Platforms Inc. — the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — is facing a lawsuit from the U.S. government (specifically, the Federal Trade Commission, or FTC).
The FTC says Meta kept itself powerful by buying out its rivals, instead of competing fairly:
- In 2012, Meta bought Instagram (a photo-sharing app).
- In 2014, it bought WhatsApp (a messaging app)
The FTC believes this was done to stop competitors from growing and challenging Facebook and Meta may be required to sell off Instagram and Whatsapp or restructure its business.
Why does this matter?
When a few big companies control too much of an industry, it can hurt everyone else including you, even if it doesn’t seem obvious at first. Both cases are about keeping the internet fair, open, and competitive — so no single company gets to decide everything we see, do, or buy online but that comes with its own cost.
In the past, Google has repeatedly touted their tools as ‘simpler and more effective’ and when prodded into selling them off has inadvertently made them worse afterwards, such as the case against the Google app store overcharging users. Google used to control the Play Store tightly to protect Android users from scammy or dangerous apps but by allowing more freedom, some of those protections essentially get weaker. That means bad apps might have an easier time tricking people.
You can see something along the same lines with Meta, deprecating the older Facebook Messenger chat widget across the web and replacing it with WhatsApp business. This highly integrated part of Meta was likely going to be the testing ground for Meta’s new AI models but now we’ll have to see what becomes of their ecosystem.
In an already turbulent and uncertain economic landscape these latest changes are going to severely affect how you market clients online. Everything points towards diversification at the moment but it may be a really rough transition. Get ready