Washington — A judge on Monday ruled 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.

The highly anticipated decision issued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the U.S. Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.

After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling.

It represents a major setback for Google and its parent, Alphabet Inc., which had steadfastly argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers’ overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online.

Google’s search engine currently processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, nearly doubling its daily volume from 12 years ago, according to a recent study released by the investment firm BOND.

Google almost certainly will appeal the decision in a process that ultimately may land in the U.S. Supreme Court.

For now, the decision vindicates antitrust regulators at the Justice Department, which filed its lawsuit nearly four years ago while Donald Trump was still president and has been escalating it efforts to rein in Big Tech’s power during President Joe Biden’s administration.

The case depicted Google as a technological bully that methodically has thwarted competition to protect a search engine that has become the centerpiece of a digital advertising machine that generated nearly $240 billion in revenue last year. Justice Department lawyers argued that Google’s monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices while also enjoying the luxury of having to invest more time and money into improving the quality of its search engine — a lax approach that hurt consumers.

As expected, Mehta’s ruling focused on the billions of dollars Google spends every year to install its search engine as the default option on new cellphones and tech gadgets. In 2021 alone, Google spent more than $26 billion to lock in those default agreements, Mehta said in his ruling.

Google ridiculed those allegations, noting that consumers have historically changed search engines when they become disillusioned with the results they were getting. For instance, Yahoo — now a minor player on the internet — was the most popular search engine during the 1990s before Google came along.

Mehta said the evidence at trial showed the importance of the default settings. He noted that Microsoft’s Bing search engine has 80% share of the search market on the Microsoft Edge browser. The judge said that shows other search engines can be successful if Google is not locked in as the predetermined default option.

Still, Mehta credited the quality of Google’s product as an important part of its dominance, as well, saying flatly that “Google is widely recognized as the best [general search engine] available in the United States.”

Mehta’s conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sorts of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage done and restore a more competitive landscape.

Besides boosting Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the outcome could hurt Google at a critical pivot point that is tilting technology in the age of artificial intelligence. Both Microsoft and Google are among the early leaders in AI in a battle that now could be affected by Mehta’s market-rattling decision.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was one of the Justice Department’s star witnesses during the testimony that covered his frustration with Google deals with the likes of Apple that made it nearly impossible for the Bing search engine to make any headway, even as Microsoft poured more than $100 billion in improvements since 2009.

“You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, and you search on Google,” Nadella said at one point in his testimony. “Everybody talks about the open web, but there is really the Google web.”

Nadella also expressed fear that it might take an antitrust crackdown to ensure the situation didn’t get worse as AI becomes a bigger force in search.

Google still faces other legal threats besides this one, both in the U.S. and abroad. any antitrust lawsuits brought against Google domestically and abroad. In September, a federal trial is scheduled to begin in Virginia over the Justice Department’s allegations that Google’s advertising technology constitutes an illegal monopoly.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous and connected vehicles in the coming weeks, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The Biden administration plans to issue a proposed rule that would bar Chinese software in vehicles in the United States with Level 3 automation and above, which would have the effect of also banning testing on U.S. roads of autonomous vehicles produced by Chinese companies.

The administration, in a previously unreported decision, also plans to propose barring vehicles with Chinese-developed advanced wireless communications abilities modules from U.S. roads, the sources added.

Under the proposal, automakers and suppliers would need to verify that none of their connected vehicle or advanced autonomous vehicle software was developed in a “foreign entity of concern” like China, the sources said.

The Commerce Department said last month it planned to issue proposed rules on connected vehicles in August and expected to impose limits on some software made in China and other countries deemed adversaries.

Asked for comment, a Commerce Department spokesperson said on Sunday that the department “is concerned about the national security risks associated with connected technologies in connected vehicles.”

The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security will issue a proposed rule that “will focus on specific systems of concern within the vehicle. Industry will also have a chance to review that proposed rule and submit comments.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment but the Chinese foreign ministry has previously urged the United States “to respect the laws of the market economy and principles of fair competition.” It argues Chinese cars are popular globally because they had emerged out of fierce market competition and are technologically innovative.

On Wednesday, the White House and State Department hosted a meeting with allies and industry leaders to “jointly address the national security risks associated with connected vehicles,” the department said. Sources said officials disclosed details of the administration’s planned rule.

The meeting included officials from the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom who “exchanged views on the data and cybersecurity risks associated with connected vehicles and certain components.”

Also known as conditional driving automation, Level 3 involves technology that allows drivers to engage in activities behind the wheel, such as watching movies or using smartphones, but only under some limited conditions.

In November, a group of U.S. lawmakers raised alarm about Chinese companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States and asked questions of 10 major companies including Baidu, Nio, WeRide, Didi Chuxing, Xpeng, Inceptio, Pony.ai, AutoX, Deeproute.ai and Qcraft.

The letters said in the 12 months ended November 2022 that Chinese AV companies test drove more than 450,000 miles in California. In July 2023, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his department had national security concerns about Chinese autonomous vehicle companies in the United States.

The administration is worried about connected vehicles using the driver monitoring system to listen or record occupants or take control of the vehicle itself.

“The national security risks are quite significant,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May. “We decided to take action because this is really serious stuff.”
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Taipei, Taiwan — Concern is rising among China’s more than 1 billion internet users over a government proposal portrayed as a step to protect their personal information and fight against fraud. Many fear the plan would do the opposite.

China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration issued the draft “Measures for the Administration of National Network Identity Authentication Public Services” on July 26.

According to the proposal, Chinese netizens would be able to apply for virtual IDs on a voluntary basis to “minimize the excessive collection and retention of citizens’ personal information by online platforms” and “protect personal information.”

While many netizens appear to agree in their posts that companies have too much access to their personal information, others fear the cyber ID proposal, if implemented, will simply allow the government to more easily track them and control what they can say online.

Beijing lawyer Wang Cailiang said on Weibo: “My opinion is short: I am not in favor of this. Please leave a little room for citizens’ privacy.”

Shortly after the proposal was published, Tsinghua University law professor Lao Dongyan posted on her Weibo account, “The cyber IDs are like installing monitors to watch everyone’s online behavior.”

Her post has since disappeared, along with many other negative comments that can only be found on foreign social media platforms like X and Free Weibo, an anonymous and unblocked search engine established in 2012 to capture and save posts censored by China’s Sina Weibo or deleted by users.

A Weibo user under the name “Liu Jiming” said, “The authorities solemnly announced [the proposal] and solicited public opinions while blocking people from expressing their opinions. This clumsy show of democracy is really shocking.”

Beijing employs a vast network of censors to block and remove politically sensitive content, known by critics as the Great Firewall.

Since 2017, China has required internet service and content providers to verify users’ real names through national IDs, allowing authorities to more easily trace and track online activities and posts to the source.

Chinese internet experts say netizens can make that harder by using others’ accounts, providers, IDs and names on various platforms. But critics fear a single cyber ID would close those gaps in the Great Firewall.

Zola, a network engineer and well-known citizen journalist originally from China’s Hunan province, who naturalized in Taiwan, told VOA “The control of the cyber IDs is a superpower because you don’t only know a netizen’s actual name, but also the connection between the netizen and the cybersecurity ID.”

Mr. Li, a Shanghai-based dissident who did not want to disclose his full name because of the issue’s sensitivity, told VOA that the level of surveillance by China’s internet police has long been beyond imagination. He said the new proposal is a way for authorities to tell netizens that the surveillance will be more overt “just to intimidate and warn you to behave.”

Some netizens fear China could soon change the cyber ID system from a voluntary program to a requirement for online access.

A Weibo user under the name “Fang Zhifu” warned that in the future, if “the cyber ID is revoked, it will be like being sentenced to death in the cyber world.”

Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Public Security and Cyberspace Administration say they are soliciting public opinion on the cyber ID plan until August 25.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s communications authority blocked access to the social media platform Instagram on Friday, the latest instance of a clampdown on websites in the country.

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority, which regulates the internet, announced the block early Friday but did not provide a reason. Sabah newspaper, which is close to the government, said access was blocked in response to Instagram removing posts by Turkish users that expressed condolences over the killing of Hama political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

It came days after Fahrettin Altun, the presidential communications director and aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticized the Meta-owned platform for preventing users in Turkey from posting messages of condolences for Haniyeh.

Unlike its Western allies, Turkey does not consider Hamas to be a terror organization. A strong critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Erdogan has described the group as “liberation fighters.”

The country is observing a day of mourning for Haniyeh on Friday, during which flags will be flown at half-staff.

Turkey has a track record of censoring social media and websites. Hundreds of thousands of domains have been blocked since 2022, according to the Freedom of Expression Association, a nonprofit organization regrouping lawyers and human rights activists. The video-sharing platform YouTube was blocked from 2007 to 2010.
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LONDON — Within hours of a stabbing attack in northwest England that killed three young girls and wounded several more children, a false name of a supposed suspect was circulating on social media. Hours after that, violent protesters were clashing with police outside a nearby mosque.

Police say the name was fake, as were rumors that the 17-year-old suspect was an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in Britain. Detectives say the suspect charged Thursday with murder and attempted murder was born in the U.K., and British media including the BBC have reported that his parents are from Rwanda.

That information did little to slow the lightning spread of the false name or stop right-wing influencers pinning the blame on immigrants and Muslims.

“There’s a parallel universe where what was claimed by these rumors were the actual facts of the case,” said Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity. “And that will be a difficult thing to manage.”

Local lawmaker Patrick Hurley said the result was “hundreds of people descending on the town, descending on Southport from outside of the area, intent on causing trouble — either because they believe what they’ve written, or because they are bad faith actors who wrote it in the first place, in the hope of causing community division.”

One of the first outlets to report the false name, Ali Al-Shakati, was Channel 3 Now, an account on the X social media platform that purports to be a news channel. A Facebook page of the same name says it is managed by people in Pakistan and the U.S. A related website on Wednesday showed a mix of possibly AI-generated news and entertainment stories, as well as an apology for “the misleading information” in its article on the Southport stabbings.

By the time the apology was posted, the incorrect identification had been repeated widely on social media.

“Some of the key actors are probably just generating traffic, possibly for monetization,” said Katwala. The misinformation was then spread further by “people committed to the U.K. domestic far right,” he said.

Governments around the world, including Britain’s, are struggling with how to curb toxic material online. U.K. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Tuesday that social media companies “need to take some responsibility” for the content on their sites.

Katwala said that social platforms such as Facebook and X worked to “de-amplify” false information in real time after mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

Since Elon Musk, a self-styled free-speech champion, bought X, it has gutted teams that once fought misinformation on the platform and restored the accounts of banned conspiracy theories and extremists.

Rumors have swirled in the relative silence of police over the attack. Merseyside Police issued a statement saying the reported name for the suspect was incorrect, but have provided little information about him other than his age and birthplace of Cardiff, Wales.

Under U.K. law, suspects are not publicly named until they have been charged and those under 18 are usually not named at all. That has been seized on by some activists to suggest the police are withholding information about the attacker.

Tommy Robinson, founder of the far-right English Defense League, accused police of “gaslighting” the public. Nigel Farage, a veteran anti-immigration politician who was elected to Parliament in this month’s general election, posted a video on X speculating “whether the truth is being withheld from us” about the attack.

Brendan Cox, whose lawmaker wife Jo Cox was murdered by a far-right attacker in 2016, said Farage’s comments showed he was “nothing better than a Tommy Robinson in a suit.”

“It is beyond the pale to use a moment like this to spread your narrative and to spread your hatred, and we saw the results on Southport’s streets last night,” Cox told the BBC.
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A California company is developing a material that can cool things by sending heat into deep space. Matt Dibble has our story in this week’s edition of LogOn.
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The construction industry is finding new uses for artificial intelligence. In a multi-story building project in the northwestern U.S. city of Seattle, autonomous robots are tasked with documenting progress and detecting potential hazards. VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya has the story.
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