USA court finds Google to be a search engine and text ad monopoly

The US DoJ has won its case against Google, with the court deciding that "(1) there are relevant product markets for general search services and general search text ads; (2) Google has monopoly power in those markets; (3) Google's distribution agreements are exclusive and have anti-competitive effects; and (4) Google has not offered valid pro-competitive justifications for those agreements. Importantly, the court also finds that Google has exercised its monopoly power by charging supra-competitive prices for general search text ads. That conduct has allowed Google to earn monopoly profits". If you've forgotten, this is the case that highlighted Google pays Apple over US$26b/yr to make sure it remains the default search engine on Apple's devices. Now we wait to see what the court reckons Google has to do about it and what grounds Google will use to appeal it.

Delta Airlines blames Crowdstrike for US$500m of damage, Crowdstrike responds that Delta are incompetent

Delta Airlines appears to be the biggest loser out of Crowdstrike's recent mega-fuck-up, saying it's gonna cost them over US$500m to restore their systems and announced plans to sue Crowdstrike to get that money back. Crowdstrike repsonded saying "CrowdStrike’s CEO personally reached out to Delta’s CEO to offer onsite assistance, but received no response. CrowdStrike followed up with Delta on the offer for onsite support and was told that the onsite resources were not needed" and that "Delta will have to explain to the public, its shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike took responsibility for its actions—swiftly, transparently and constructively — while Delta did not". As Justin said over in the latest issue of The Crux, "that sounds a lot like a threat, to me. Other CrowdStrike customers: take note".

Chrome starts warning users of uBlock Origin that it'll stop working soon

Google Chrome has begun showing users of the popular uBlock Origin ad-blocking extension that it will "soon no longer be supported" and providing links to similar extensions on the Chrome Web Store. This is due to the depreciation of the Manifest V2 extension framework and that Manifest V3 just doesn't have the same range of filtering capabilities that make an ad blocker work properly. Google says they're doing it to keep users safe from dodgy extensions, but it also happens to have the nice collateral damage of nerfing the extensions that impact its advertising revenue. The developer of uBlock Origin has made uBlock Origin Lite so that there's still something for Chrome users whenever Manifest V2 is removed from the browser, but as they explain, it's kinda shit due the limitations of Manifest V3 and the Firefox version is vastly superior.

The AI bubble is popping

Ed Zitron has the best summary I've read yet of how the business types are realising they may have got sucked in by the tech bros and AI. It's the same story I've quoted before from other sources - the astronomical costs of AI investments just aren't matching any projections of revenue or profits due to those investments. Zitron adds to the bubble popping narrative that GPT-5 isn't going to be that amazing of a leap like GPT-4 was to GPT-4 and Nvidia's next-gen AI chips are taking longer than expected and will cost a fortune. This will lead to the cost of AI products (ChatGPT, APIs, image generators etc.) increasing in price, which means they'll be less popular and the downward spiral begins. It's only a matter of time Zitron thinks until OpenAI collapses, taking the majority of the industry with it, like FTX and cryptocurrency. Still a thing, but the froth is gone.