Google's Data Sharing Plan Gets FTC's OK on Privacy
Hey, so remember that big trial happening with Google, the one where the government is saying they have a crazy monopoly on online search? Well, the folks over at the Federal Trade Commission, who are basically in charge of making sure companies play nice with your privacy, just weighed in.
They said that the Justice Department's idea to make Google share some of its search data with other companies? Yeah, the FTC thinks that plan actually has enough stuff built in to keep your personal info safe. Pretty interesting, right? The Justice Department wants Google to share this data to make the online search world a bit more fair and open. They're trying to shake things up after deciding last August that Google is, like, way too dominant in the search game. It's been wild with all sorts of people giving their opinions to the judge as this whole thing wraps up this month.
This case could seriously change how we use the internet, maybe even challenge Google's spot as the place everyone goes to find stuff online. The FTC figures that if there's more competition, Google will have to step up its game even more when it comes to protecting our privacy. On the other hand, Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai, is trying to stop this data-sharing idea. He's worried it would mean giving away their secret sauce, their intellectual property. He even argued it would hurt user privacy, which the FTC seems to disagree with. The FTC pointed out that this proposal would have a group of people making sure Google follows the rules, kind of like how they handle privacy issues in other settlements.
The Justice Department and state lawyers are also pushing the judge to make Google sell off its Chrome browser and stop those huge payments they make to companies like Apple to be the default search engine on new phones and computers. Google says just making those deals non-exclusive, which they've apparently already started doing, is the right way to go. Idk, seems complicated.
There's also chatter about Google maybe extending its dominance into the world of AI. One AI company, Anthropic, who actually partners with Google, said in court papers on Friday that if Google has to tell the Justice Department about its AI investments and partnerships beforehand, it would really make Google think twice about investing in smaller AI companies. They think it would probably stop those investments altogether. Google actually owns a good chunk of Anthropic, worth billions! Anthropic argued that this proposal would actually hurt AI competition, not help it.
