Google Faces Potential Breakup as DOJ Seeks Antitrust Remedies Over Search Monopoly #1815

The lead story for Monday, April 22, Alphabet is back in court as a DOJ pushes to break up Google's search empire proposing diversity excuse me, divesture of Chrome and restrictions on Android and AI use. The trial overseen by judge Amit Nitha is the latest in a series of legal battles over Google's dominance in online search and advertising.

Google warns that forced remedies would hurt consumers, strifle innovation, and pose national security risk while the government compares the case to pass landmark antitrust actions. Welcome to episode 815. Well, this is a this is a big move. We knew this was coming. And, the question really be will be, will the government

have the have the strength to to get this done? And will the DOJ throw caution to the wind and will they will go for the jugular? You know, these legal problems for Alphabet, is definitely something that is ongoing. It's big, but I I think they're right. I think they're absolutely right in the, in the verdict. I think they're right in seeking this action. Search, which I well know, is is definitely one of those situations where Google has a has a stranglehold on things.

And, the assistant attendee the assistant attorney general who heads the DOJ's antitrust division said Monday before opening statements that each generation has called for the DOJ to challenge a large company that's crushed competition. Now in past decades, it was Standard Oil, AT and T, and now it's Google. I will say that the breakup of AT and T and what end up resulting was good ultimately for consumers. There was a period of, you know, I guess for a better question questions by consumers.

So a breakup of Google search, diversification of or divestiture of Google Chrome, something to that effect would probably be good for consumers in the wrong one long run. And, now they want more more than just the what they're calling divestment of Google Chrome. The government wants the judge to force the company to demand Google from paying mobile device makers and browser companies for search distribution.

It also wants to require that Google share its search query clicks and result data that left the door open to a possible, again, divestiture of Google's Android operating system. So the only flexibility offered by the prosecutors concerns AI. They scaled back a proposal from, the former administration that pushed Google to sell off its AI, assets or bets. So we'll see. Now the DOJ is in its in its opening statement.

Use Google of repeating the tactics that it's made in illegal search monopoly by buying up placements for its, Gemini chatbot and on Android powered devices. So not buying up. It's their device. So we will see, where all of this leads. So that's the lead story for episode 815. Of course, I'm your host, Todd Cochran. A shout out to our incredible sponsor at GoDaddy. Score exclusive deals and discounts at geekinesscentral.com/GoDaddy. And to all of our listeners, you're the

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So hope everyone's doing well. I tell you, it seems like and even today. Here we go. I've gotten everything's been working fantastic. Stream has been working good. And all of a sudden, it's just I don't understand it. Camera locks up, and I have no idea why the camera locks up. And it's it's absolutely annoying to me to no end. It it's it's it's beyond bizarre. Let's see if we can get it back. Yeah. It's back now. I I don't get it.

I I've had it seems I can never get this rig to the place I want it to be. I I I've worked and worked and worked and worked, and may maybe just it's just too much. And I ran the camera in a test situation for hours and hours and hours yesterday. Those of you listening to the show don't care. It's just been driving me absolutely bonkers. There was no, there was no, video for the last show because I I looked over and I was, you know, frozen. And I I think it's just maybe too many inputs.

I don't know. I really don't. I I'm at I'm at a loss at this point. But one thing is for sure, the instant instance instant. The instant I start streaming, this thing just likes likes to roll over and, and act dead. It's beyond me. But, you know, I've got myself moving again. We'll see, we'll see if it stays up and continues. I've got to after I get the show recorded today, I've gotta go off and get the, my visa extended. And then I need to, basically, things are you know, I'm wrapping down

here. About eighteen days or so away from heading home, which, which will solve the studio problem. But, yeah, I look forward to, to being back in in the original studio and and and not fighting, OBS. And maybe OBS is the is the challenge. I I don't know. But, one thing's for sure, one or two too many USB connections and you try to do too much processor

load, which really isn't even that heavy, and then things just, roll over and, fall on their head. So I hope everyone's doing well. Let's go ahead and, and get into the stack here and see if I can make it through, the show here. The FBI oh, wanna thank our, our insiders. We'll do that before we get too far into this. Daniel Mix. Lemay. I'm sorry, Daniel. $10, contribution. Michael Dell's World, two dollars. Christian Petrie, three dollars. Gary Evo's, ten dollars. SJG Media LLC,

ten dollars. So, everything from a sustaining to a, a warrior donation. Thank to each of you, for your ongoing support of the podcast. Been, looking at what's been going on with the streaming sats piece, and, hopefully, I've got, that fixed. I don't know. We'll see. So, I'm I see sats coming in in the report, but one of the distribution points was was not working right. So, hopefully, that that there is is fixed. We'll do some test boost to the show to make sure.

Alright. The FBI is not calling you to help recover from fraud. Alright. Just be aware. The FBI the FBI is not calling you, not calling your grandparent, not calling your parent, but scammers pretending to be from the FBI's Internet crime complaint center have been reported more than a hundred times, probably a million times, people from India doing impersonation scams. So scammers may contact fraud victims by phone, email,

or social media. They offer to help target recovery of their lost money or claim they've already recovered it, and then ask for payment or personal information at which the points victim lose more money and or data to yet another bad actor. So these are they're calling people that they have stolen money from and say, hey. We got your money. We're gonna help you get it back. The FBI is not calling you to help you recover from fraud.

So if you've got a family member that has been defrauded, make sure you let them know they will not be called to recover money from fraud. Countries are shoring up their digital defense as global tensions rise in the threat of trade wars and everything else. They move things are moving to cyber warfare. And, we know that there's been attacks on, municipal water plants that happened before, but we know that people are not happy.

And when people are not happy, then these types of cyber warfare activities type of things ramp up. And vulnerabilities have grown as, as people and businesses are using connected devices to get to count steps, manage finance, operate facilities. Each network and connection is a potential target for foreign government. And, again, espionage is one motive, and, of course, others is to control infrastructure or just get access to intellectual property, whatever it may be.

So, just be aware out there of what may be happening in the world

and, and and and, you know, and just, you know, be advised. Airbnb is making a change. They're now going to show the full price of your of your stay by default. You'll no longer need to use a toggle to see the cost of your stay including fees, which is good. This will include including the cleaning fees, any taxes, any special stuff that goes on with the reservation. So this is a smart move. And if you haven't used Airbnb lately or ever at all, you may not have known this, but they

did. They hid the full price. And they showed the daily rate, but they didn't show all the extra taxes and stuff. Then you went to check out, like, what is this? And, have have a big, big surprise here. Neuroscientists are racing to turn brainwaves into speech. So

researchers, universities across California and companies such as New York based Precision Neuroscience are among those making headway towards generating natural speech through a combination of brain implants and artificial intelligence. Investment and attention have long been focused on implants that enable severely disabled people to operate computer keyboard and so forth. And some regain some of their freedom back. But those that those that have the inability to speak.

This is a sector that's being worked on, in a big, big way. And, they're connecting a a variety of probes into the brain, which is kinda scary in itself, and then taking those brainwaves and converting that to speech. And, they it's getting better. The basically, they've trained these systems on neural networks, to speak up to a 24 different words. There's a bit of a delay, a hundred to two hundred millisecond gap in in normal speech.

And, but they've been able to increase the, median decoding speed to about 47 and a half words per minute. So, again, as more people volunteer, test these systems, the better they will get over time. So, good to see that this type of activity is happening to help those that are unable to speak. This world is fast fast fast changing. Multiple top CISA officials behind Secure by Design have resigned. In a statement

to Cyber Scoop, acting director Bridgette Bean said that encouraging the private sector to build more secure products will continue to be a priority at the agency. The two top officials who worked with the private sector to manufacture secure products and technology are leaving the agency. Bob Lord and Laren Zabrick, senior advisers were two of the chief architects behind CISA's secured by design initiative and garnered voluntary commitments from major vendors.

Both of them in dueling LinkedIn posts said they were departing the agency. Not specifically why, but the departure definitely does raise questions about the state of secure fate of secure by design. So more shakeups or changes at c I s a.

This is kind of a funny statement. Verizon consumer CEO let me get my water out here. Verizon consumer CEO says net neutrality went literally nowhere. Now think about that statement for a second. When this individual made this statement, think about the attempts in the history of Verizon and others to aggressively lobby against net neutrality rules. I don't know what net neutrality does. I still don't know what the problem we are trying to solve with net neutrality.

Well, it was laid out very clearly. And it was about having an open free Internet, no bandwidth restrictions, all kinds of other things. Yet they fought against it, but don't understand what they were trying to solve. It's a very curious comment. It really, really is. All these years later, you would think they would know what would this was in reference to. There's continued fallout from, fake PDF converters. Fake PDF converters are spreading malware to steal users and worse.

We've known about this. We talked about this in a prior show. Fake PDF converters are tricking users with clone sites and fake CAPTCHAs. Hackers use realistic design and social engineering to avoid detection. So most software today, Google Docs will allow you to save something in a PDF or import from a doc and save as a PDF.

You don't often need a special software program to change something into a PDF. Most save as functions in Word and Snagit and a whole bunch of other applications will you allow you will allow you to save as a PDF even as your printer. If you want to print a page, instead of selecting the printer option, you can select save as PDF. So lots of ways

to to convert things. Now if you're trying to do this on your mobile device, again, be careful of what you're loading, and you do not need a file conversion program to do this. You really, really don't. It's it's handled, what what applications are people having trouble converting PDFs? That's that's what I would like

to know. You know, where where where in lies the challenge, and why are people needing to download a PDF converter when so many applications have outputs that allow you to save as a PDF? And a little bit of a change of pace here in science news, and this is one that I kinda scratch my head on. Scientists are using fiber optics to spy on ice quakes. Yes. I said that correctly. Ice quakes deep inside a Swiss glacier.

Now in an environment where traditional seismic sensors often fail, researchers from ETH Zurich led by Tom Hudson and Andreas Fichtner installed a dense two d fiber optic grid across a crevice field on that's called Goronglaster, Switzerland's largest glacier. The gull captured elusive seismic signals of ice quakes caused by crevice formation. Now why why are we studying this? What is what is the importance of this data?

They say it could assist in modeling glacier behavior, quote, unquote, in response to climate change, to break the speed and scale of melt driven contributions to sea level rise. Okay. We know the glaciers are melting. Does this really is this really valuable science? Sometimes, I, you know, I understand people have a very interesting

study points, but, yeah, I I guess whatever whatever floats your boat, to be honest with you. I guess people study paper airplanes too, but sometimes I just wonder, really, is this valid science? But someone's paying for it. The FTC is suing Uber, says the company charged for Uber One without consent. The regulatory claim that customers are wrongly promised savings when the when they sign up for Uber One and the company makes it difficult to cancel the subscription.

Well, we know that making it hard to cancel subscription is now underneath the radar of the FTC. So the agency claims Uber violate FTC act and restore online shoppers confidence acts by providing misleading information about its Uber One subscription service, failing to provide a simple way for users to cancel and charging them without their consent. They say Americans are getting tired of signing up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel. So the FTC is fighting back

on behalf of the American people. I do say some of this stuff is a bit ridiculous. I got a few reoccurring charges that I had to hunt and hunt and hunt to find the way to cancel. It's often been elusive. You don't wanna get to the point where you call your credit card company, but sometimes they make it that difficult. Blue Sky is getting blue check marks and an official verification system.

Similar to x. So, again, Blue Sky is adopting the official verification system that changes NobleShift for the platform, which previously registered the idea of centralized verification up to now. The company has relied on domain based verification system, which allow users to change their handles to match domain

associated with, but that approach was criticized for being often overcomplicated. These critiques have only amplified as blue sky and has grown in popularity. So under this new system, the company will proactively verify certain accounts and add prominent blue check marks to their profile. It's not clear what criteria Blue Sky will use for these badges. Sound like x? It it sure does, doesn't it? Meta is using its AI detection tech to shuffle more young users into teen accounts.

Lying about a birth year may not be enough to evade detection. So if this actually works, this will be a good thing. The company says it's taken steps to ensure that age detection tech is accurate. But in case it makes a stake, users that the EI suspected being a teen have an option to change their settings and stick with adult content. Well, why don't we just ask for some sort of verification? If you say I'm if the person says they're 18 and they're 16 and the system says,

I think you're 16. You can change it back to 18. What what does that do? Makes all their work mute point. It really, really does. We know that made a debut teen accounts in Instagram last fall, and, of course, they've expanded them to Facebook and and Messenger. Now this is a wild one. Archaeologists have uncovered 317 skeletons underneath the department store. So arch archaeologists archaeologists working I I can't speak this morning.

Working at two separate sites in Europe have made strikingly similar discoveries.

A total of 317 skeletons were uncovered at both locations, one in Paris beneath the monoprint store and other in in England beneath what was once a a Devon's department store. Turns out that one was a medieval hospital and one was a forgotten church. So, of course, you can understand why bodies may have been found underneath the location of a previous hospital.

And what's interesting about how the bodies were laid out was rows and rows of humans carefully laid side by side and then layered, which is even more kind of interesting. And, they basically used a repeated use of a burial grounds deep and medium and shallow. So,

and, of course, the same thing has happened in England, near a church, which was, more than likely, very close to a cemetery, which, you know, it was pretty common even in The United States. A lot of, cemeteries were right next to, to, to churches. Google has released Gemini 2.5 Flash with hybrid reasoning and and is boasting faster speeds. This new AMI model, which it seems like we're getting a new AI model every week, it's called the high bring reasoning.

Developers can able or disable the thinking process maintaining speed while improving accuracy. The new model claims to be faster, and the Gemini 2.5 flash also, quote, unquote, outperforms competing AI models. That's, of course, always the headline. Mine's faster. Mine's better. Mine's faster. Mine's better. Mine faster. Mine's faster. Mine's better. It just never ends.

Again, I'm just putting a warning out here so that you can warn your loved ones scammers exploiting Google and PayPal tools, create fake emails that pass security checks. Attackers are sending phishing emails that appear to be from [email protected], presented as an urgent subpoena alert about law enforcement seeking information from the target's Google Google account. Again, scam, scam, scam. Google is aware of this issue and, rolled out protections

to shut down this avenue for abuse. In the meantime, we encourage user adopt two factor authentication and passkey, which provides strong protection against these kinds of phishing campaigns. Well, your login doesn't

affect you getting an email from what appears to be Google or PayPal. Just be aware again. At the same time, Windows seems to be borking up updates. April's Window 11 update is borking some PCs that run CrowdStrike. So after selling k b five zero five, five five two three, PCs with CrowdStrike, Falcon sensor maybe running into problems with their system. So, again, a few bugs for business users, may and cause your computer to be unstable, stuff not even run, apps may crash.

So when you have so many software packages out there across so many different operating systems, I'm just surprised this doesn't happen, more and more. Samsung is on the hunt looking for iPad technology for new automotive OLED screens. You know, this is one thing about computer screens in cars. They have to be much, much brighter, And o l e d seems the way ahead. So we'll see what, what Samsung comes up with in this regard. A lot of you are taking your kids to see the Minecraft movie.

Minecraft movie has topped the box office. Of course, with the lack of movies out there right now, it it doesn't come as a surprise. The fancy adventure comedy film earned 6,520,000.00 on its second Thursday, making it the third biggest second Thursday among April releases with a strong fourteen day total of $303,320,000.

And this becomes the first film in 2025 to earn over 300,000,000. Of course, who knows how much it it costs to create it. But, anyway, just people are not. Just seems like the movies are are pretty boring. I I went to look to go to a movie on Sunday, and the lineup was just horrible. It was horror films and Minecraft. That was it. Nothing nothing really super interesting. Nvidia took another hit today.

Nvidia stock, did drop as chowing as Chinese Huawei is reportedly boosting AI chip production after export ban. So, apparently, Chinese tech giant Huawei is set to begin shipping advanced AI chips as soon as next month, probably all stole from Nvidia. And, rep reportedly, Huawei's nine one zero c chips are competitive with Nvidia's h 100 AI chips. We're two generations behind its latest Blackwell chips. So the the I guess this doesn't come as surprise.

They've had a little bit of time to, reverse engineer, the NVIDIA chips and, you know, give them a little chance. They'll they'll they'll catch up here. If you use Webex, make sure you update your version of a Webex. A Cisco Webex security flaw could let hackers hijack your system via meeting invite. So, again, make sure you update Webex if you're using Webex. The only people I meet with that use Webex, I think, is Apple. I think Apple uses Webex.

I might be incorrect, but there's only one company I meet with ever that I have this, have to use that particular meeting software. Apple was gonna probably have a problem bringing back manufacturing to beat the the tariffs. I just you know, this is not gonna happen that quickly. They're calling it, there's a word for it. And I don't know who who come up with this term. But what happens and let me explain it here first according to this article.

What happens is you start to build on build at a certain place, and then the plastic companies is built where near where you are, then the resistor company, and then the display company. So formal Intel CEO, Pat Glessinger, said on Yahoo. So what happens is these other elements of the supply chain start to aggregate around the core element of the supply chain. So this they sediment into those locations and where they become fixed. And that sediment or sedimentation takes decades

to happen. And then to move things just doesn't happen very quickly. Well, you know, I've been seeing articles here where Foxconn is just rolling into factories with forklifts, loading workstations up, putting them on trucks and just moving stuff. So I I'm not so sure that things can't move quickly. All you need is a building and people and the equipment. Now if you're bringing stuff back to The US, you know, that's gonna take a little time.

But if you're moving to another country, maybe not so, especially if you bring the team over to

train the team. You know, there might be a bit of a slowdown. Now some stuff won't move as quick, AKA the supporting stuff. So but but time will tell. Have you all heard about this thing with this Blue Origin space flight being mocked? I guess people are just you you know, I I I don't know what the problem is. I you know, they took a ride in a Blue Origin spacecraft. They did something that most people would consider dangerous. They went to a certain altitude.

Whatever the US government classifies in space. They were there for a short period of time. And, no, there wasn't science done per se. It was, you know, it was definitely a publicity stunt, but they were able to, you know, be weightless. I think it's a lot of us would like to do that, but everything revolves around this door opening and how they weren't supposed to open it from the inside. So a little bit of a, you know, dramatics.

I think we can all agree that even on the SpaceX vehicle, the astronauts have the capability of opening the door from the inside. It's probably not the way they want them to open. They want them to stay in their seats. They wanna come in and get them. Whereas Blue Origin might be, you know, obviously, they this is only takes a few minutes. But just a lot of people are, you know, making a mockery of it.

So, again, I I just it is what it is. I I woulda went. Would you? I I I think I woulda went. So I I guess I just don't understand all the mockery. You know? Would you get strap yourself to a rocket? NASA's curiosity finds a major clue that Mars was once habitable. And this is not necessarily something new, but it is an ongoing clue.

Carbonate material was found and, a large deposit of carbon locked away in carbonate minerals and may sound a little dry, a little pun there at first, but and this is not the first time carbonate has been detected, but it was a very big deposit and, has made the news headline here. So, I think we can pretty much be sure that some distance passed, there was something significant and some form of life that was on Mars.

Us going there will be the only way to really figure out exactly, the depth of that or getting samples back from a region that, may have had something living in it or on it. Big changes for Apple iPhone 17, what to expect devices. Expect to have an a 19, pro three nanometer processor, include a 48 megabook pixel camera to replace the current 12 megapixel rear camera. You see the Apple c series five g modems. Of course, we know that there's going to be,

challenges with production in a sense if they don't get the rare earth minerals they need to make components could slow things down. I think I'm okay with my current phone for a bit. There we go again. I froze again. How come? How come I froze? I don't get it. As I froze, so we may have to stick with the screenshots for the rest of the show. SpaceX has launched this the thirty second resupply mission, So, they sent an uncrewed Dragon cargo, to the International Space Station.

So nice job on that. And, let's see if I can unplug this thing and plug it back in if that will fix it. Maybe. No. No. Let's see if that'll do it. Let me see if I get my image back. So, anyway, thirty second resupply mission. Okay. I am back. Now the question will be, will I be back on the other screen? Yeah. There we go. I don't know what's going on with this stupid thing. The cargo cargo dragon mission dubbed commercial resupply took 6,700 pounds to the ISS.

A judge has stroke down strike down at Ohio law limiting kids use of social media as unconstitutional. So US District Court judge Allegan Marbley decision came in a lawsuit filed by NetChoice, a group, a trade group organization representing TikTok, Snapchat, and many others. The organization's complaint argued that law the law unconstitutionally impedes free speech

and is overly broad and vague. So, not surprising there. So people are being asked to not whole hoard old tech. And I've got old tech. I've got old laptops. I've got old old cell phones. 37% of people only 37% of people trade in their old devices while a quarter sell them. So if you have old tech is cluttering your home, you might be sitting on some cash. So might be time to recycle. So there's trade ins. We also give away. You know, oftentimes, we give stuff to family and friends.

You can use a recycling service. You can sell. A lot of people throw stuff away, probably not the best idea with batteries in,

donate to a charity. And, again, 31% don't know what to do with them. And I think this is the case in in where I live is what what do I do with this stuff? So what do you do with your old tech? I'd love to hear love to hear from you on on what you do with your old old old tech. Alright, ladies and gentlemen. It's gonna bring us to the end here. [email protected]. Geek news at g mail dot com at geek news. Don't forget about our sponsor GoDaddy, geek news central dot com forward slash GoDaddy.

And, also, consider becoming insider geeknetcentral.com/insider. I'll be back with you on Thursday for another edition of the podcast. I wanna thank you for being here and and hanging out with me. It's been my pleasure to bring you the show. And, I can see when I brought the camera back that, white balance is completely off and I'm washed out. But, better to be moving than be a, you know, a frozen image on the screen. Thanks, Arin, for, for hanging out with me.

Take care, and we'll see you next time on the Geeked Essential Podcast. Take care. Bye bye.