00:00 Speaker A
Breaking news to tell you about right now. Google not required to sell its browser Chrome as part of a long anticipated antitrust case and investors paying attention Alphabet jumping in aftermarket trading on the ruling decision coming from a federal judge Tuesday, our tech editor Dan Howley is following the case joins us now with the latest. Dan, your your thoughts here.
00:23 Dan Howley
Yeah, this is an interesting ruling. Uh it’s there’s some changes here that Google has to make, but it’s not the most devastating that uh it could have faced. The company, uh as you said, will still be allowed uh to operate Chrome. It also is not barred from uh entering into agreements with companies like Apple where there’s a revenue sharing uh element. So Apple’s also up on this news as well. That was a big deal for Apple because it receives about uh in 2022 at least, it received about 20 billion dollars from an agreement to make Google the primary search engine for its browser, uh its Safari browser as well as its uh Siri search. So this is a a big deal for Apple as well. But for Google, they are barred from certain activities. That includes uh making its Play Store available, uh if and only if a company also uses other Google apps on their devices. So that’s something uh like Samsung uh may not have to actually use uh all of Google’s services or or a number of Google’s services just to get access to the Play Store. Uh similarly, it can’t require companies to put uh to to access a certain Google app if they also have to use another uh and would receive payment for it. So, there’s there’s some provisions here. The company also has to share some data uh with competitors, but not necessarily all data. Uh it does appear as though this is kind of uh a an almost win for Google in the sense that as I said, the worst aspects of what could have come to pass have not.
01:41 Speaker A
You know, Dan, I know you’ve been following this case closely. Investors, it would appear are are surprised and and and pleasantly surprised just looking at the reaction, the responses as you mentioned in Alphabet here in in Apple. Are you surprised by this one, Dan?
02:01 Dan Howley
Uh you know, I I think that for for the way that this case seemed to go and and the the ruling itself that uh they were found to uh you know, be a monopolist in this market. and then, you know, hit with their their other uh case in the the ads case and also uh be found to be a monopolist in that space. It just, you know, seemed as though things weren’t going Google’s way or Alphabet’s way. So, uh I think maybe the market thought that, look, we might as well hedge and think that things are going to be uh as bad as possible. Um but uh I think that that may be part of the reaction here. You know, having to sell Chrome would have been a big deal for Google, obviously. It’s the the most popular browser out there and with Google being the the primary search on there. And one of the other interesting things is uh the company doesn’t have to provide uh so uh kind of programs where you would automatically be uh able to pick uh so like an an option box when you sign into Chrome, something along those lines. Um so that’s something to to kind of keep in mind just because it’ll allow consumers to continue to use uh Chrome, which obviously will help Google and then when they use Chrome, stay in Google search. So, this is this is seems to be a a lot of benefits for Google here. Um but there are some benefits uh for obviously uh the the the DOJ, basically saying, uh you know, uh or excuse me, the the prosecution on this side, uh basically saying they do have to share some of their data with third parties.
03:22 Speaker A
Dan, thank you. Appreciate it.
