Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: You start recording, we'll start spitting rhymes. Boo boo, boo boo.
Speaker 2: Come on, good morning and welcome to the Daily os
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, the fourteenth of September. I'm Sam, I'm Zara.
Speaker 2: Google is in court this week facing allegations it is
Speaker 2: illegally dominating the Internet. A trial pitting the US government
Speaker 2: against tech giant Google began.
Speaker 1: Today, the government's biggest antitrust case against a tech company
Speaker 1: in more than twenty years.
Speaker 3: This is going to be the tech trial of the century,
Speaker 3: at least so far.
Speaker 2: In today's date dive, we're going to look at what's
Speaker 2: being argued in this case and what it means for you.
Speaker 2: But first, some more news from Quantas.
Speaker 3: That's right, more news this time.
Speaker 4: It's that the High Court has found that the airline
Speaker 4: acted illegally when it sacked roughly seventeen hundred baggage handlers
Speaker 4: back in twenty twenty. The High Court was considering an
Speaker 4: appeal from Quantus, who had already lost twice before Quantus
Speaker 4: accepted the decision and said it deeply regretted the impact
Speaker 4: the sacking had on the workers.
Speaker 2: The federal government's housing Bill has passed the Senate. It
Speaker 2: comes after the government secured support from the Greens by
Speaker 2: including an extra one billion with a bee to fund
Speaker 2: short term social housing projects. It will now be signed
Speaker 2: off in the House of Representatives before it can become law.
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong un have met in Russia.
Speaker 4: Images of the pair show the two leaders shaking hands,
Speaker 4: with Pudin leading Kim through a tour of a Russian
Speaker 4: space base. Pudin is expected to ask for North Korean
Speaker 4: weapons to help Russia's efforts in Ukraine during incoming talks.
Speaker 2: And today's good news good news for every Tease Swift
Speaker 2: fan out there. Taylor Swift has taken out a record
Speaker 2: nine MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday. Zara, You're a
Speaker 2: very curious soul, aren't you?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think so.
Speaker 4: My partner actually recently told me that he thinks I'm
Speaker 4: not because I don't try.
Speaker 2: New things interesting.
Speaker 3: It's a podcast for another time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, that's that's the TDA up late podcast. In
Speaker 2: the case that you are curious and you have Internet
Speaker 2: browser handy, where do you go to find your answers?
Speaker 3: I'd say Google.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a very typical response, and you won't
Speaker 2: be surprised to hear that Google accounts for about ninety
Speaker 2: percent of search engine markets globally.
Speaker 3: Now I'm actually surprised. I actually would have thought it
Speaker 3: was more interesting.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well, I think you have to remember that there
Speaker 2: are other competitors out there. You've got Bing, You've got
Speaker 2: Duck Duck Go. You've also got a Cozier. I didn't
Speaker 2: even know that was a thing until today, But there
Speaker 2: are competitors floating around. And there's this legal case in
Speaker 2: the US that's investigating where the Google's monopolization of the
Speaker 2: market breaks antitrust laws by preventing proper competition.
Speaker 4: Can you just say that in layperson English, because I
Speaker 4: feel like there was a lot of jargon in that sentence.
Speaker 2: Lots of jargons. So let's break it down. So the
Speaker 2: Department of Justice, and we'll call them the DOJ, it's
Speaker 2: suing Google in the US for creating what it says
Speaker 2: is an unfair playing field that other search engines can't
Speaker 2: compete in. And when we say anti trust laws, it's
Speaker 2: basically this body of law in the US that prohibits
Speaker 2: anti competitive behavior. It is kind of like the laws
Speaker 2: that we have here in Australia, and we've spent some
Speaker 2: time on this podcast talking about them in the last
Speaker 2: week or so in the context of Qatar Airways and
Speaker 2: competition in relation to Quantus. Now, in this US case,
Speaker 2: the DOJ's arguing that Google is a monopoly gatekeeper for
Speaker 2: the Internet, and they're alleging that the company has used
Speaker 2: anti competitive techniques to build a search engine empire.
Speaker 4: What are some of the techniques that they're suggesting might
Speaker 4: be anti competitive.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the main ways that the DOJ is
Speaker 2: arguing Google's got this unfair advantage is these deals that
Speaker 2: Google is doing with the makers of phones and computers
Speaker 2: in order for those phones and computers to have the
Speaker 2: default search engine on the devices as Google. Now, according
Speaker 2: to the DOJ's case, every year Google forks out billions
Speaker 2: of dollars to companies like Apple and Samsung to make
Speaker 2: Google the default browser on their devices. And what that
Speaker 2: means for you and me is that when we pick
Speaker 2: up a new phone or we open up a new laptop,
Speaker 2: we're greeted with a Google homepage as the pre loaded
Speaker 2: search engine in the browser. So the DOJ alleges that
Speaker 2: this tactic has effectively eliminated or competition and therefore makes
Speaker 2: them a monopoly.
Speaker 3: I think that's really interesting.
Speaker 4: Again, one of those things you don't really think about
Speaker 4: if you open a new product and Google is just there,
Speaker 4: like everywhere, so I would never question how it got there.
Speaker 4: I guess that's why I'm not part of the DOJ.
Speaker 4: On the flip side, though, what is Google saying? We've
Speaker 4: heard the DOJ side. How has Google come back in
Speaker 4: this lawsuit.
Speaker 2: Well, it won't surprise you to hear that Google denies
Speaker 2: the claims made in this case, and it says that
Speaker 2: the lawsuit is deeply flawed. Google says its agreements with
Speaker 2: providers like Samsung and Apple to make its search engines
Speaker 2: the default are totally legal, and that people can easily
Speaker 2: change their settings on their devices to have a new default.
Speaker 2: And according to Google, the reason it dominates the market
Speaker 2: is pretty simple and really doesn't take any legal jargon
Speaker 2: to understand. It says it dominates because it's the best.
Speaker 3: And in here, I'm going to use that as every defense. Ever, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's best.
Speaker 2: It's very There's only a couple of companies in the
Speaker 2: world who could stand up in court and say we
Speaker 2: are unequivocally the best. And if one was probably going
Speaker 2: to be able to argue that it is Google. And
Speaker 2: in one of the opening statements in court, the Google
Speaker 2: lawyer said users today have more search options and more
Speaker 2: ways to access information online than ever before. So according
Speaker 2: to the tech giant, there's plenty of competition out there,
Speaker 2: they're just not as good as Google.
Speaker 4: So if we're to take Google's logic, then it is
Speaker 4: the best, and I mean you and I use it
Speaker 4: every single day, multiple times a day. Why is it
Speaker 4: an issue if Google is saying, well, it's the best,
Speaker 4: that's why it's everywhere.
Speaker 2: Well, this is really the heart of the dilemma that
Speaker 2: tech has when there's one player that dominates the market,
Speaker 2: because part of the reason why Google is so good
Speaker 2: is because we all use it, and this is this
Speaker 2: idea and technology called the network effect, and what that
Speaker 2: means is because your entire network is brought into a
Speaker 2: particular system or software or program that is the secret source.
Speaker 2: And a really easy way to think about that is
Speaker 2: the power of Instagram. Now, Instagram is only good because
Speaker 2: you know when you log onto Instagram that you're going
Speaker 2: to see the friends, the family, the daily Oazas if
Speaker 2: none of your friends and family and daily oss were
Speaker 2: on Instagram, I doubt that you would be there either.
Speaker 2: And so if we transport that logic over to Google,
Speaker 2: the network effect for Google means that its algorithm is
Speaker 2: so up to speed and it's so accurate because so
Speaker 2: many of us use it, that it actually provides us
Speaker 2: with the best results because it's got the most data
Speaker 2: to digest.
Speaker 4: You just gave me the opposite of an answer to
Speaker 4: my question because I said what the issue was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's why the network effect is good for
Speaker 2: the consumer. But where it's bad for the consumer is
Speaker 2: that we stop having real alternative options if we're no
Speaker 2: longer happy with the status quo. And so in the
Speaker 2: case this week, the DJ has kind of been playing
Speaker 2: this out, and what they've been saying is that by
Speaker 2: limiting competition, Google is putting consumers us searchers in a
Speaker 2: position where we're going to feel compelled to accept whatever
Speaker 2: Google is offering. So when it comes to Google's policies
Speaker 2: on privacy and data collection, for example, by Google limiting competition,
Speaker 2: we have fewer options and might therefore feel compelled to
Speaker 2: use Google even if we don't like what they're doing
Speaker 2: with our information.
Speaker 4: Technology has been around for however long, and I can't
Speaker 4: imagine this is the first time that the law has
Speaker 4: had to deal with something like this. I mean, we've
Speaker 4: had monopolies in the past, and we have many monopolies
Speaker 4: across tech.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And one of the big cases that not only
Speaker 2: the DJ but a lot of commentators are looking at
Speaker 2: in the context of this current Google case is back
Speaker 2: in the late nineties, So you were only a couple
Speaker 2: of years old, Zara, wandering around the playground, probably reading
Speaker 2: the Financial Review. The rest of us were right at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the Internet boom, and the tech world
Speaker 2: was having this kind of awakening with how to fairly
Speaker 2: operate systems and products in this space. But at that
Speaker 2: point in time, it wasn't Google that was the center
Speaker 2: of all of this. It was Microsoft. So to put
Speaker 2: us in the right time. Apple only introduced the iMac
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight, so at this point it was
Speaker 2: really Microsoft's that was it when it came to what
Speaker 2: devices we could buy to access the Internet. So at
Speaker 2: the time, Microsoft's Internet Explored was the go to browser,
Speaker 2: and in a landmark court case, the DOJ argued the
Speaker 2: company was violating anti trust laws by attempting to crush
Speaker 2: a competitor called Netscape, And the concerns here were over
Speaker 2: deals that Microsoft were making with Internet service providers to
Speaker 2: use Internet Explorer as a default browser instead of Netscape,
Speaker 2: which is eerily similar to what's being discussed in the
Speaker 2: Google case today. Interestingly, at that time, during the Microsoft case,
Speaker 2: Google a newly founded company at that stage, they alleged
Speaker 2: Microsoft's behavior was anti competitive. Microsoft was eventually found to
Speaker 2: have violated anti trust laws, and as a result, the
Speaker 2: court in the US ordered the company change its practices.
Speaker 2: And what we're seeing here is that the Microsoft case
Speaker 2: will be heavily leaned on as a precedent in the
Speaker 2: current Google case.
Speaker 3: So there clearly is precedent.
Speaker 4: Then if you were to castonite of the future, what
Speaker 4: do you think will happen here?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to steer away from my somewhat rogue crystal
Speaker 2: ball predictions, so I'm going to reserve judgment on who
Speaker 2: wins in this case. It's going to be super interesting
Speaker 2: to watch how it unfolds, though, and in the same
Speaker 2: way that that Microsoft case was seen as this big
Speaker 2: moment in the nineteen nineties, whatever happens in this case
Speaker 2: is going to be a fascinating precedent for the future.
Speaker 2: It could have consequences for other corners of technology and
Speaker 2: for other major players like Meta, Amazon, and Apple, who
Speaker 2: were all relatively dominant in their spaces, because if Google
Speaker 2: is found to be guilty of anti competitive actions, the
Speaker 2: company could be fined and force change their practices.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening to this episode. If you have any
Speaker 4: questions or thoughts or feelings about the court case and Google,
Speaker 4: we would love to hear them. Just pop them in
Speaker 4: the question box under the show notes in Spotify and
Speaker 4: we'll be sure to read them how we go day