“The process of a decade” against Google, which you did not know about Joe Bayden and the new business of Uber founder

US authorities filed a lawsuit to Google, which could end with the division of the company

In the United States, the process of a decade officially launched, the results of which will largely determine the future of digital services and the lives of their customers. The Ministry of Justice filed a lawsuit against Google to abuse a monopoly position in the search market and Internet advertising. Officials compare the court with the historical process of the AT&T telephone monopoly, as a result of which the company was divided into 9 parts. Google can also threaten a forced division of business - at least the congressmen insist on this from the dumping of the Democratic Party.

• The antimonopoly claim for Google, which has been preparing for more than a year, was filed by the US Ministry of Justice and the prosecutors of 11 states, Jeff Rosen Deputy Minister of Justice told reporters. Google is accused of creating an illegal monopoly on the Internet Pioneer market in the United States, 88% of which controls the service, and advertising in search services.
• The lawsuit does not indicate potential sanctions that the plaintiffs will demand to impose on Google, but the senior adviser to the Ministry of Justice in the technological industry Ryan Schors said that he did not exclude any options, hinting at the most severe consequences - for example, the division of the company. This option is also allowed by lawyers. From Google, according to him, they will demand to abandon all the activities that are harmful to competition.
• The Wall Street Journal calls the lawsuit the largest antitrust business in the United States over 20 years. Deputy Minister Rosen compared the case with two historical antimonopoly processes - 1974 against the telephone AT&T, which resulted in the division of the company into 9 regional operators, and 1998 against Microsoft, after which Bill Gates miraculously escaped a similar division.
• The lawsuit states that Google maintained his monopoly status by concluding agreements on granting exclusive rights. For example, the company has concluded agreements with manufacturers of equipment, demanding that Google search be preinstalled on their devices. Often it was impossible to delete Google from a smartphone or computer. In particular, the lawsuit refers to the cooperation of Google and Apple, which made the Google search engine practically the only search engine built into the Safari browser.
• In Russia, Google lost a similar court of the Federal Antimonopoly Service back in 2016. The company pledged not to prevent the installation of competing services on smartphones on the Android platform and paid a fine of 439 million rubles.
• It is also noted that Google controls with the help of exclusive rights about 90% of all search queries in the United States. And from advertisers, the company receives $ 40 billion per year.
• The antimonopoly claim for Google is a rare and important event, the Deputy Minister Rosen noted. According to him, if the technological giant cannot be interfered now, then the “next Google” may never arise on the market, because the current monopolist does not allow competitors to develop.
• The shareholders of Alphabet, the Motherland of Google, on the news of the long -awaited lawsuit not only did not fall, but also grew (+1.87% at 22:20 Moscow time). The market has long taken into account the prospect of filing a lawsuit, the trial will take years, and the plaintiffs have not yet demanded the most radical measures like the compulsory separation of the company, analysts explained Reuters. Alphabet accounts are now $ 120 billion in cash - this will allow the company to pay any, even the largest fines, said the senior analyst of Edward Jones Dave Hegen.
• Nevertheless, the requirement to separate the Google business is a real prospect. Such a solution (regarding not only Google, but also Facebook, Amazon, and Apple) was called acceptable in the report published in early October following the investigation of the Antimonopoly Committee of the Congress. And the Politico publication last week reported that the US Ministry of Justice as one of the options considers the requirement to sell the Chrome browser and the allocation of Google advertising services to a separate company.

What am I to me?

We will read the news about the trial against Google for several more years, but the final decision will determine the regulation of digital services around the world for decades.

Who will America choose

What did you not know about Joe Bayne

If a miracle does not occur, Joe Biden will become the new President of the United States on November 3. The new large material in our special project about the American elections is about the leader of the presidential race, which began his career as the young hope of American politics, and now it can become the oldest president in the history of the United States.

We know Biden as Vice President under Obama, but for American voters he became a noticeable and popular figure in the early 1970s. Biden (without great pleasure) congratulated Richard Nixon on the election of the Senate, in Moscow he was negotiating with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union Andrei Gromyko, and for the first time ran for the presidency in 1988.

For 50 years in the Senate and the White House, Biden accumulated not only political capital, but also many skeletons in the closet, from harassment to racism accusations, but now the main question for the 77-year-old “sleepy Joe”, confusing the presidential and senator posts in the speeches, is his health. We tell in detail what Trump’s rival is known and how his election can affect Russia, the American economy and relations with China.

MONEY

Bring iPhones Aeroflot aircraft

The scandal of the day - the US State Department annulled 113 visas of Aeroflot employees, whom the American authorities consider to be involved in the smuggling of Apple stolen devices for $ 50 million. Eight alleged organizers of the criminal scheme were arrested in the United States, two on the run. According to the Americans, the smugglers transported gadgets with the help of passengers of aircraft, as well as the current Aeroflot employees. Only one of those arrested for four trips to the United States transported more than 1000 Apple devices by more than $ 1 million. Many of the devices were stolen. Aeroflot only stated that there were no employees on the list of those arrested.

Abyzov took 32 billion rubles from

Ex-Minister and Businessman Mikhail Abyzov, who had spent a year and a half in the pre-trial detention center, if he got out of there, then without money. Today, the court decided to recover from Abyzov in favor of the state a record 32.5 billion rubles, which the structures of the businessman earned on the sale of Sibeko in 2018, when Abyzov was still a member of the government. The investigation believes that this money was earned by corruption, Abyzov himself denies the charges.

PRACTICE

New Business Founder Uber

We already wrote about the new startup of the founder of the Trevis Kalanik service, the founder of the Cloudkitchens service, renting rooms for “dark kitchens” - restaurants that work only for delivery. Kalanik guessed again - the number of dark kitchens took off during the pandemic. Today, The Wall Street Journal tells how he managed to turn around in two years. According to the publication, Cloudkitchens has already bought more than 40 real estate objects - closed restaurants, automobile and warehouses - in the amount of more than $ 130 million. At the same time, Kalanik holds his new business in such a secret that the points belonging to Cloudkitchens are not indicated not only on its website, but also on Google Maps, and employees are prohibited from indicating The company as an employer on Linkedin.

In the pandemic, people began to listen more to smart podcasts

Even a decrease in the number of people who go to work daily could not stop the growth of subcasting. According to Chartable, the total number of podcast downloads in the United States in September increased by 150% compared to January 2020. According to Dave Zohroba, podcasts are required to increase the break in the production of TV content due to closed studios and borders-the audience began to look for alternatives to him. News grow rapidly (an increase of 98% from October 2019 to October 2020) and scientific (44%) podcasts - during the pandemic people want to know what is happening in the world. At the same time, people became less interested in previously popular Podcasts about crime - this category has grown by 25%, having lost in growth programs about business, sports and culture. As Quartz explains , for many the 2020 pandemic has become the most terrible crime.