The Truth about Badger Licking Edition

Google is fast approaching the FIND OUT stage of its multiple anti-trust cases with the US Department of Justice and EU regulatory bodies. It is very possible the DOJ could order Google to sever its relationship with its Chrome browser in coming months. That leads to speculation on what other decisions might be coming down and how throwing spanners into the cogs of the machine Alphabet has built might effect Google's operations in the future. Those wags at OpenAI suggested they would be happy to take Chrome off Google's hands if the courts order it. Meanwhile, there's more controversy over OpenAI's restructuring plans, Google was caught forcing Motorola to block Perplexity.AI on certain phones, Meta's oversight board is suddenly worried about Meta's new policies effecting human rights, US search ad revenues grew by nearly 16% in 2024, and according to Gemini "You can't lick a badger twice". We know that last statement to be untrue but won't be answering any questions about it. All this and much much more in this edition of Webcology.