"Google isn’t satisfied with its monopoly on the questions we search.

Google wants to use AI to monopolize the very answers themselves.

As one Google executive recently explained: “Organizing information is clearly a trillion-dollar opportunity, but a trillion dollars is not cool anymore. What’s cool is a quadrillion dollars.”

Google plans to use AI to consume and replace the open web.

I believe demolishing independent sites like mine was Google’s first step in clearing ground so it has space to rebuild search from the ground up for an “AI-first” future.

Google envisions a future where “Google does the Googling for you,” its AI and ads do the answering – and users never need to leave Google.

Google will just source information from a handful of sources and partner websites that it controls and selects – effectively creating an information cartel.

If Google can use AI to censor a travel website from the web arbitrarily and without opportunity for appeal – it can do the same to any source of information it wants.

And American citizens and Internet users everywhere will be worse off for it.

So while you may not really care about the plight of some random travel website getting censored, everyone should care about the way Google is deploying AI to build a censorship cartel that lets it control the flow of information online.

What follows is a lengthy summary of my experiences and my opinions as an independent publisher trying to survive in a monopolist’s information economy.

To start, let me explain how we got to this point where Google has the power to do this:"

https://travellemming.com/perspectives/ftc-letter-google-censors-indie-publishers-with-ai/

Just another way #Trump’s #tariffs are tanking the US…

Exclusive: #Nvidia to launch cheaper #Blackwell #AI chip for #China after #US export curbs, sources say

Nvidia will launch a new #ArtificialIntelligence chipset for China at a significantly lower price than its recently restricted H20 model & plans to start mass production as early as June, sources familiar with the matter said.

#economy #competition #Trade
https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nvidia-launch-cheaper-blackwell-ai-chip-china-after-us-export-curbs-sources-say-2025-05-24/

“Asked about people putting bumper stickers on their #Teslas declaring they bought it before “Elon was crazy”, Musk said: “There are also people buying it because Elon’s crazy, or however they may view it. Yes, we’ve lost some sales, perhaps, on the left, but we’ve gained them on the right.”

Musk was *visibly shaken* when discussing the #activists’ campaign against him and his cars, saying they were “evil” and on the wrong side of history.

“What’s wrong with these people? *I’ve not harmed anyone*. So, something needs to be done about them. *A number of them are going to prison*, and they deserve it.” Asked whether he took the attacks #personally, he said: “Yes.”

Free market forces in action

#Smith / #Markets / #FreeMarkets / #competition <https://archive.md/YGhkg> / <https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/bruised-and-angry-elon-musk-says-he-will-cut-back-on-political-spending-20250521-p5m0vm.html> (paywall)

"In the 1960s and 1970s, a group of Chicago School economists conceived of an absurd new way to interpret competition law, which they called "the consumer welfare standard." Under this standard, the job of competition policy was to encourage monopolies to form, on the grounds that monopolies were "efficient" and would lower prices for "consumers."

The chief proponent of this standard was Robert Bork, a virulent racist whose most significant claim to fame was that he was the only government lawyer willing to help Richard Nixon illegally fire officials who wouldn't turn a blind eye to his crimes. Bork's long record of unethical behavior and scorching bigotry came back to bite him in the ass when Ronald Reagan tried to seat him on the Supreme Court, during a confirmation hearing that Bork screwed up so badly that even today, we use "borked" as a synonym for anything that is utterly fucked.

But Bork's real legacy was as a pro-monopoly propagandist, whose work helped shift how judges, government enforcers, and economists viewed antitrust law. Bork approached the text of America's antitrust laws, like the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act, with the same techniques as a Qanon follower addressing a Q "drop," applying gnostic techniques to find in these laws mystical coded language that – he asserted – meant that Congress had intended for America's anti-monopoly laws to actually support monopolies.

In episode three, we explore Bork's legacy, and how it led to what Tom Eastman calls the internet of "five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four." We got great interviews and old tape for this one, including Michael Wiesel, a Canadian soap-maker who created a bestselling line of nontoxic lip-balm kits for kids, only to have Amazon shaft him by underselling him with his own product."

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/19/khan-thought/#they-were-warned

"The focus on US corporate control, #sovereignty& #competition misses the deeper issue:how#cloud migration reconfigures the very nature of #publicinstitutions.
The Dutch academic community…highlight how #cloudmigration converts #universities “from being a source of technical innovation & knowledge distribution to consumers of services”—a fundamental shift that undermines academic independence and transforms knowledge-producing institutions into service-consuming clients."
https://www.techpolicy.press/clouds-over-public-infrastructure-rethinking-internet-governance-in-the-hyperscaler-era/

The Productivity Commission has included a right to repair in its revitalised National Competition Policy. The Albanese Government did not deliver a #righttorepair in its first term. Will a #righttorepair become a priority in its second term? https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/may/19/labor-andrew-leigh-focus-productivity-after-us-inequality-warning #auspol #auslaw #competition #consumerrights

#Trump #FCC Approves #Verizon’s $20 Billion #Frontier Acquisition After #Telco Committed to Eliminating #DEI, Agency’s #GOP Chair Says

After Verizon agreed to end its #diversity, #equity & #inclusion policies, the FCC—led by Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr — approved the telco’s $20B deal to acquire #FrontierCommunications.

#law #antitrust #monopoly #competition #hate #discrimination #bigotry #labor #business #AmericanAutocracy
https://variety.com/2025/biz/news/fcc-approves-verizon-frontier-merger-eliminate-dei-carr-1236400724/

#competition : the act of seeking, or endeavoring to gain, what another is endeavoring to gain at the same time

- German: der Wettbewerb

- Italian: competizione

- Portuguese: competição

- Spanish: competición

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Report an incorrect translation @ https://wordofthehour.org/r/translations

#ECJHighlights
14/05 (J): @EU_Commission refusal of access to text messages between Ursula von der Leyen and @pfizer CEO (T-36/23)
15/05 (J): #Tobacco – packaging with unlawful elements (C-717/23)
15/05 (O): #Competition – #football regulations (C-133/24, C-209/23, C-428/23)

Frustrating to watch a perfectly good set of presenters on #AI policy be asked a series of very specific questions from highly technical areas — #competition, #regulation, #export control, local industrial policy — where they don’t work!

Enter our essay competition for the chance to win £250.

Share with us your ideas on how to innovate in event organisation, to have a lower environmental impact.

Find out more about the competition:

https://www.biologists.com/stories/essay-competition-innovative-ideas/

EU competition chief on digital regulation: ‘We’re not here to make enemies’ https://www.byteseu.com/969185/ #Apple #Competition #DonaldTrump #Europe #EuropeanCommission #EuropeanUnion #TeresaRibera

"The most important story is that on Monday, in a D.C. district court, Judge Amit Mehta started hearings on how to restructure Google to thwart its unlawful monopoly. Two floors down, Judge James Boasberg continued the antitrust trial between the government and Meta. Never before have two trillion dollar plus companies been put on trial at the same time, in the same court house.

And yet, on Thursday, Google had its quarterly investing call where it unveiled its gargantuan earnings of $34 billion in the past three months, and discussed its future prospects with Wall Street researchers. Not a single analyst even mentioned the risk of antitrust or asked a question about it. One of them noted a stat that came out of the trial, which is user pick-up of the search firm’s AI app, Gemini, so they are clearly paying attention to the trial. They just don’t seem to think it matters. That’s true for big investors in Meta as well.

Why does antitrust seem irrelevant to Wall Street? It’s certainly not the substance of the trials."

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-google-generated