SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has branded Google as a ruthless monopolist bent on suffocating it competitors. But how do you go about creating alternatives to a search engine that's synonymous with internet exploration?
It's a process that may take years to unfold as Google appeals the landmark decision issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta.
And with that kind of time frame looming, the forces of technological upheaval may make the exercise moot.
The rise of artificial intelligence may reshape the landscape more quickly and profoundly than any judge ever could. The way consumers navigate the internet is more likely to be affected by advances in AI products — such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's own Gemini — before a nearly 4-year-old case brought by the U.S. Justice Department is finally resolved.
Even so, Mehta's 277-page ruling Monday creates challenges for Google that company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin probably didn't envision when they set out to revolutionize internet search while attending Stanford University as graduate students. They eventually dropped out to start a Silicon Valley company in 1998 that adopted “Don't Be Evil” as a motto that also was meant to serve as its corporate conscience.
Page and Brin, who remain the controlling shareholders of Google's corporate parent Alphabet Inc., also cast their cuddly startup as a crusader for technology that would be far better than the products coming out of Microsoft, the industry's reigning kingpin at the time. Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software and anticompetitive tactics during the 1990s spurred another Justice Department case that ended up hobbling Microsoft and helped make it easier for Google to build its lead in search and then expand into maps, cloud computing, email (Gmail), web browsers (Chrome) and video (YouTube).
Now, the script has been flipped, with Google facing potential legal constraints, while a resurgent Microsoft has been making early headway in AI with a major helping hand from its investment in OpenAI. In one of the most dramatic scenarios that most experts think is unlikely to happen, Google might be forced to break up its business similar to how AT&T — once known as “Ma Bell” — ended up spinning off its telephone subsidiaries into separate “Baby Bells” more than 40 years ago.
It will be left to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who took over the company's leadership from Page in 2015, to minimize the distractions caused by the legal skirmishing still to come and remain focused on an industrywide pivot to AI technology that's expected to be as revolutionary as the mobile computing shift by Apple's introduction of the iPhone in 2007.
The debate about how Google should be overhauled will begin Sept. 6 with a hearing scheduled in Washington, D.C., before Mehta, who also presided over the 10-week trial last year that led to his antitrust decision.
Google also will be pursing an appeal, based on its long-held contention that it has done nothing wrong but build and maintain a search engine that has been far superior to anything else for more than 20 years. The Mountain View, California, company also maintains that competition is just a few clicks away, with consumers still free to go to other options, such as Microsoft's Bing, DuckDuckGo and, more recently, AI-powered alternatives such as Perplexity and ChatGPT.
Although Mehta praised the quality of Google's search engine in his ruling and acknowledged the company initially became the people's preferred choice in its early days, he concluded it resorted to unfair tactics to maintain its leadership during the past decade. Google did it, Mehta said, mainly by negotiating lucrative deals to cement a position as the default search engine on the iPhone and wide range of other devices, including PCs.
Those deals, which totaled $26 billion in 2021 alone, meant Google automatically processed search requests unless consumers took the time to manually go into their settings and choose another option — something that few do. The default option then helped Google collect valuable insights that enabled the company to improve its search engine in ways that rivals couldn't because they lacked the same data.
Default requests processed accounted for 60% of Google's search traffic in 2017, Mehta pointed out in his ruling, and that volume in turn created more opportunities to sell the ads that generate the majority of its parent company's $307 billion in annual revenue.
Mehta's focus on the default search deals in his ruling make it likely he may decide to ban them after the next trial phase is completed, according to antitrust experts. That could have implications for other companies besides Google, especially Apple, which pockets about $20 billion annually from an arrangement that is currently scheduled to continue through 2026, with options to extend the alliance into 2028.
Apple didn't respond to a request for comment about Mehta's decision, but its executives have depicted the decision to make Google the default search engine on the iPhone and other products as a convenience to its customers — most of whom prefer to use Google.
But an order preventing Apple from doing default search engine deals with Google could do more than just siphon away revenue. It might also require Apple to spend heavily to develop its own search technology — an endeavor that Google estimated would cost more than $30 billion as part of 2020 analysis that Mehta cited in his ruling. Then, it would cost Apple an additional $7 billion annually to sustain its own search engine, according to Google's analysis.
FILE - Various Google logos are displayed on a Google search, Monday, Sept. 11, 2023, in New York. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, that Google's ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world's best-known companies. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE - Google CEO Sundar Pichai leaves the federal courthouse in Washington during closing arguments in the antitrust case against Google on Oct. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
FILE - The Google sign is shown over an entrance to the company's building in New York on Sept. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
The FBI said former President Donald Trump was the target of “what appears to be an attempted assassination ” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life.
Trump was shot during an assassination attempt at a July rally in Pennsylvania, and a bullet grazed his ear.
U.S. Secret Service agents opened fire on Sunday after seeing a person with a firearm near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club in Florida while he was golfing. No injuries were reported. Officials say the person fled in an SUV and was later apprehended by local law enforcement.
He was identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, three law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House will be demanding more Secret Service protection for Trump, saying he needs more attention than any other protectee.
“He’s the most attacked. He’s the most threatened, even probably more than when he was in the Oval Office,” Johnson, R-La., said on “Fox & Friends.” “We are demanding in the House that he have every asset available.”
The Republican speaker was on his way to visit Trump on Sunday when the former president was targeted while golfing. The suspect is now in custody.
Johnson and his wife, Kelly, visited with Trump afterward for about three hours, and the speaker said he was in “good spirits.”
The House’s bipartisan task force on the July assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania is monitoring the situation and has requested a briefing. Johnson said the panel was scheduled to hold a hearing later this month as it investigates the political violence.
“There’s going to be reports and recommendations coming forward, and Congress will act swiftly,” Johnson said. “We need accountability.”
Johnson said he has “no faith” in Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The House impeached Mayorkas earlier this year over the department’s handling of immigration, but the Senate declined to consider the charges in a trial.
Ryan Wesley Routh briefly entered a Florida courtroom Monday morning for his initial appearance, wearing a dark blue jail jumpsuit and his arms and legs shackled. He sat quietly for about five minutes with no visible signs of nervousness before marshals led him back out to await his hearing.
The Associated Press filmed Ryan Wesley Routh in April 2022 at a demonstration in Kyiv’s Independence Square two months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
A placard he was holding said: “We cannot tolerate corruption and evil for another 50+ years. End Russia for our kids.” He wore a blue vest with the American flag on the back, along with a scarf and T-shirt in the colors of his national flag, while participating in a small rally.
Other participants held posters drawing attention to Mariupol, which was under siege at the time and is now occupied by Russia. That same day, Routh also paid tribute to foreign citizens killed during the war near a makeshift memorial sign reading “Foreigners killed by Putin.”
Ryan Wesley Routh has never served in the Ukrainian army nor collaborated with the military in any capacity, according to Oleksandr Shahuri, a representative officer of the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command.
Over the past two-and-a-half years, Routh has periodically contacted the international legion with what Shahuri described as “nonsensical ideas.” His plans and ideas can best be described as delusional.”
Shahuri, speaking to The Associated Press, firmly denied any connection to Routh. The International Legion of Ukraine was created shortly after the outbreak of the war by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It consists of foreign citizens “wishing to join the resistance against the Russian occupants and fight for global security,” according to Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
Zelenskyy released a statement on X regarding the apparent assassination attempt: “I am glad to hear that Donald Trump is safe and unharmed. My best wishes to him and his family. It’s good that the suspect in the assassination attempt was apprehended quickly. This is our principle: the rule of law is paramount and political violence has no place anywhere in the world. We sincerely hope that everyone remains safe.”
Trump campaign leaders are crediting the Secret Service with keeping the former president safe following an apparent assassination attempt in Florida.
In an email sent to staff Sunday evening, senior campaign advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles wrote, “Today, for the second time in two months, an evil monster attempted to take the life of President Trump.”
“Thankfully, no one was injured at the Golf Course. President Trump and everyone accompanying him are safe thanks to the great work of the United States Secret Service,” they wrote.
They added that campaign staffers’ safety is “always our top priority” and asked those receiving the email to “remain vigilant” and “observant and maintain a constant level of situational awareness."
The leaders of a bipartisan task force in Congress that has been investigating the assassination attempt on Trump at a Pennsylvania rally in July said it is monitoring the Florida situation and has requested a briefing by the Secret Service.
“We are thankful that the former President was not harmed, but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its forms,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa. and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. “The Task Force will share updates as we learn more.”
It was not immediately clear whether the incident would affect Trump's campaign schedule.
On Monday night, he was set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency live on the social media site X for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform. Trump planned a town hall Tuesday in Flint, Michigan, with his former press secretary, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, followed by a rally Wednesday on New York’s Long Island.
Trump had returned to Florida this weekend from a West Coast swing that included a Friday night rally in Las Vegas and a Utah fundraiser. His campaign had not advised about any public plans for Trump on Sunday. He often spends the morning playing golf, before having lunch at the club, one of three he owns in the state.
The man who authorities say pointed a rifle with a scope into former President Donald Trump’s golf club and was arrested is Ryan Wesley Routh, three law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.
The officials identified the suspect to the AP but spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Secret Service agents shot at the suspect, who was taken into custody after fleeing the scene of what the FBI is calling an apparent attempted assassination of the Republican presidential nominee. Authorities are working to determine a motive.
— By Associated Press reporters Colleen Long, Eric Tucker, Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Michael R. Sisak
Police officers direct traffic near Trump International Golf Club after the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump waves as he boards a plane at Harry Reid International Airport after a campaign trip, Saturday, Sept.14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - Security agents talk at the entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, March 31, 2023, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)
A police officer directs traffic near Trump International Golf Club after the apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)
Sheriff vehicles are pictured near Trump International Golf Club, Sunday. Sept. 15, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla., after gunshots were reported in the vicinity of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Stephany Matat)
This photo provided by the Martin County Sheriff's Office shows Sheriff's vehicles surrounding an SUV on the northbound I-95 in Martin County on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff's Office via AP)
This photo provided by the Martin County Sheriff's Office shows Sheriff's vehicles surrounding an SUV on the northbound I-95 in Martin County on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff's Office via AP)
FILE - The motorcade for President Donald Trump arrives at Trump International Golf Club, Feb. 15, 2020, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Photos that show an AK-47 rifle, a backpack and a Go-Pro camera on a fence outside Trump International Golf Club taken after an apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, are displayed during a news conference at the Palm Beach County Main Library, Sunday. Sept. 15, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Stephany Matat)
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at Harry Reid International Airport to board a plane after a campaign trip, Saturday, Sept.14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ryan Wesley Routh pays tribute to foreign citizens killed during Russia-Ukraine war in a central square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Ryan Wesley Routh takes part in a rally in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
