Pluralistic: Google skates (05 Sep 2026)

Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-09-10)

• Federal judges are delivering “remedies” of “nothing” for Google’s proven antitrust violations in search and ad-tech, allowing the company to continue its monopolistic practices and exploitation.
• Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling on Google Search, despite evidence of Google deliberately worsening search for more ads and paying Apple $20b annually to maintain its monopoly, imposed no significant penalties like data deletion or spin-offs.
• Judge Leonie Brinkema’s ruling on Google’s ad-tech monopoly, which includes the “Jedi Blue” conspiracy and Google’s inherent conflict of interest as owner, buyer, and seller in the ad market, also failed to force a sell-off of its ad-tech stack, allowing Google to continue siphoning hundreds of billions from publishers and advertisers.
• Doctorow frames these judicial failures as a demoralizing but not unprecedented setback, emphasizing the need for “object permanence” and sustained effort, drawing parallels to the decades-long struggle to break John D. Rockefeller’s empire.