How Big Tech Is Losing Their Antitrust Trials feat. Jason Kint

Ed Zitron is joined by Jason Kint, CEO of DCN, to talk about Google's recent antitrust trial losses, Meta's FTC case, and why it should give you hope for the future. YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. You can also order a limited-edition Better Offline hat until 5/22/25! https://cottonbureau.com/p/CAGDW8/hat/better-offline-hat#/28510205/hat-unisex-dad-hat-black-100percent-cotton-adjustable Follow Jason: https://x.com/jason_kint https://www.marketingbrew.com/stories/2025/04/17/google-ad-tech-illegal-monopoly-doj https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5364789/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ftc-antitrust-trial --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:39Ed Zitron?

  I get on their ass. Somebody's got to do it.

• 1:53Ed Zitron?

  This is Better Offline. I'm Ed Zitron. Today, I'm joined by the wonderful Jason Kent, who has been at the Google Ads trial and multiple other FTC and DOJ-related trials as well. Now, last week, we had wonderful news. The Department of Justice won their antitrust trial against Google, saying they have a monopoly over ad tech. This is a wonderful time. And Jason, of course, last year was here for multiple episodes with us to walk us through the trial. He was there in person. Jason, how are you doing?

• 2:20Speaker 06

  I'm good, Ed. Thank you. It's good to see decisions starting to come in from the courts on what we've been talking about.

• 2:26Ed Zitron?

  And just to be clear, Jason, this is CEO of Digital Content Next. I did not say that at the top. It's the professional podcast run by a professional. But so walk us through what the verdict was.

• 2:36Speaker 06

  This is the ad tech case against Google that was in Virginia, to remind the listeners. And it was around Google having market power and monopoly power on the buy side, the sell side, and in the exchange, and then illegally using that monopoly power. The decision from the judge was that mostly in agreement with the plaintiffs, and it was a big win for the Justice Department, who worked really hard on this case, that they have monopoly power in the exchange. So where the auctions actually happen. And then on the publisher side with the ad server marketplace that determines what ads land on the page, and that they illegally

• 3:16Speaker 06

  tied those two products together. So the only part of the decision which I think Google's trying to make to be a bigger deal than it probably is, is that they, the judge did not agree that there was this market on the buy side, the way it was defined. And so

• 3:32Ed Zitron?

  What does that mean in simpler terms?

• 3:34Speaker 06

  In simpler terms, it could affect where remedies go, because there is not a finding that they illegally use monopoly power on the buy side with advertisers buying ads.

• 3:48Ed Zitron?

  And so just they owned the technology to sell the ads and the ways in which it was so like, I guess.

• 3:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, they, they, they still, it's true that they have significant influence because they have the largest player on the buy side of ads. So where advertisers are actually buying the ads. But not that they, she didn't find that they had, that there was a form legal market there that they abused. And so as we go through remedies discussions, I think it's probably, it might be less likely that there's some sort of structural separation where they need to divest the buy side too. Although all this stuff's frankly, going to get tangled together and, and it will be a whole new ballgame with remedies, especially with search remedies going on this week too. So go ahead.

• 4:32Ed Zitron?

  I was gonna say, like, so what are the remedies that the Department of Justice is actually seeking here?

• 4:38Speaker 06

  On the ad tech case, on this case, it's a structural separation of their roles in the ad tech marketplace. And so that was very clear coming into the into the trial.

• 4:50Ed Zitron?

  So just break it down for me, though, what they, how would they break up Google in its current form? Is that even possible?

• 4:57Speaker 06

  I mean, in, yes, absolutely. In the, in the simplest way would be forcing Google to divest, which probably would mean spinning off to its shareholders rather than selling, because it's going to be such a valuable asset. But actually

• 5:14Ed Zitron?

  Like so a separate company?

• 5:16Speaker 06

  A separate company that is the ad server marketplace. Yeah. And, and the exchange itself too. So.

• 5:22Ed Zitron?

  So dumb guy question for you. What is an ad server in this case? Like, how, how does this actually break down?

• 5:28Speaker 06

  It's the, you know, it's the technology that sits on the web pages or on the publisher side that actually makes the decision on what ad to serve on the page. So when you're browsing a webpage or on an app, it's what's deciding to serve the ad.

• 5:46Ed Zitron?

  And so Google ran that themselves. They, like, they ran that themselves. So they ended up prioritizing their own ads, I'm guessing?

• 5:53Speaker 06

  Yes, that's, that's the case. And so, and, you know, in the findings, what's really interesting is that the judge very much agreed with and understood that Google's illegal conduct in terms of how they were able to manipulate auctions in ways that probably favored them and certainly harmed the publishers was a part of the finding. So, yeah.

• 6:18Ed Zitron?

  And when they, when you say they harmed the publishers, is it just the, it wasn't possible to compete with Google on ads because Google both made ads and then had the platform that showed the ads to people?

• 6:28Speaker 06

  You know, she, she hit on a number of things that I think are going to be super interesting in the remedy. She hit on that Google was able to keep charging 20% of the exchange market. So they could take 20% of every single transaction and that that price never moved from 20% for the most part because of their monopoly power. But she also hit on all the ways that they can manipulate the auctions, which could end up being, that's a bigger issue. When you start thinking about the private lawsuits that are out there, too, you get into, you know, literally tens of tens of billions of dollars of potential harm to publishers from auction manipulations.

• 7:05Ed Zitron?

  And what and how were they manipulating auctions, just so we understand?

• 7:10Speaker 06

  Well, the allegations were that, and the this in what she addressed in the opinion, were things like first look and last look, where they actually were able to

• 7:25Speaker 06

  see the prices ahead of time or at the end of the auction and make decisions based on the bids that they uniquely were able to do.

• 7:35Ed Zitron?

  Which is which is so insane that they were able to like they basically set prices, like get everyone to bid and then just immediately beat them. Like it's it's shocking. That's the thing. It's kind of flagrant.

• 7:50Speaker 06

  So with last look, I think, you know, I think I've hit on two things here. One of last look, which I think the judge very much understood because I can remember her, you know, who was completely new to this marketplace. She totally got why that was an issue when she, you know, last look. If you take to like a silent auction where you put your little bids down in an envelope and everybody has kind of their secret bid. This would be like Google then at the end was able to look at everybody's bid, see what the highest bid was and then bid higher if they wanted. That was last look. And there were a bunch of other things that stemmed from that. And she really seemed to understand it, which is, it's, you know, it's nice to see. So.

• 8:30Ed Zitron?

  Kind of impressive to see a judge just pick up an entire subject matter like that.

• 8:34Speaker 06

  I totally agree. You know, who I be should be most scared frankly by this opinion is if I'm Facebook or Meta, who is like counting on this idea that the judge in their case doesn't know or use social media and TikTok and Instagram, et cetera. It tells you once again that a judge that understands the law and sits there for four weeks, plus all the pre-trial stuff and and listens to the evidence can understand these issues. And the most important ingredient, I think, was the Justice Department, who really understood the the case in a way that they could dive deep and then explain it to the judge and they succeeded to do that.

• 9:14Ed Zitron?

  Hmm. So it kind of reminds me. So during some of the Google Ads trial things, you talked about the spaghetti thing, where they were trying to do this kind of sleight of hand thing and like, ah, it's too impossible to understand. Like it's too complex and they turned it into that ridiculous thing.

• 9:30Speaker 06

  That's right, they did. And yeah, and that tells you that that is not going to be a successful defense. Is trying to confuse a judge who has never used, they would understand ad tech. That's, that's not going to work. The Justice Department succeeded in explaining it. They kept it simple.

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• 10:57Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 11:11Ed Zitron?

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 11:22Speaker 07

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• 11:58Ed Zitron?

  So what happens next? What are the next moves with this, Pom?

• 12:02Speaker 06

  Well, I reminded this is the what's called the Rocket Docket, the Virginia District, Eastern District of Virginia. And so the judge moved really, really fast. That's why they have that name. This case was filed in January of 2023. And so we got to a trial, you know, 18 months later and a decision that took, you know, frankly, the decision took a lot longer than anyone thought it was going to take to come out. People were starting to get nervous, but you know, it just took time and she clearly wrote a really clear opinion and it's, it's very, um, it's very easy to read through. So, uh, that keeping in mind, I think she'll probably move fast. They have a meeting to, I think it'll be tomorrow, uh, in terms of what's the schedule going forward for remedies.

• 12:47Speaker 06

  And so I would expect the, the dates to all be in the next few months.

• 12:51Ed Zitron?

  But what would the remedies be? So they would have to break off the three part, like the ad side, they would have to break off the sell side. Like what, what are they going to have to do in theory? I realize you're just guessing.

• 13:03Speaker 06

  I'm just guessing, you know, that the findings are, are clear enough that there's going to be structural separation that they're going to be pushing for. You know, how, how the buy side gets handled is going to be really important because a reminder, and this doesn't come out really in the proceedings as much. But the ad tech case is downstream from the search case. And the arguments were that the reason Google was able to dominate the buy side and the sell side in ad tech was because of the monopoly power in search. Which we also have remedies now, uh, that started on Monday. And so. These things are going to start to swirl together. And when you think about Google having

• 13:45Speaker 06

  to divest Chrome and some of the other remedies within the search case, it's quite possible that there'll be some larger settlement that will be proposed, or a larger structural separation that needs to play out between the two decisions.

• 14:02Ed Zitron?

  So as you've been hinting at, there was the verdict last year that Google did have a monopoly over search. How do you think that these two things are going to play together? You kind of got it there, but what are the ways in which this could go?

• 14:16Speaker 06

  Well, the search decision was not, there were two monopolies that they were found of abused. One was search, the other was search text ads. So it was the ads that we see in search, which is Google's largest business, right? And so

• 14:32Ed Zitron?

  So just so I'm clear, you're saying that there's the monopoly over a search engine, and then the advertising on said search engine?

• 14:39Speaker 06

  Exactly. And so, and that advertising on said search, that advertising on said search engine is, is what allowed them, according to the Justice Department, to then dominate in the ad tech stack. And so I think that's the connection point between the cases, and will also start to be a part of the discussion, the remedies. Both cases involve network effects, both cases involve using data to, to maintain market power and to abuse it.

• 15:11Ed Zitron?

  Right. So the potential remedies, it sounds like, could be almost breaking up Google into multiple different companies?

• 15:19Speaker 06

  With this case, the baby bells, you know, idea of what happened to AT&T should be much more clearly front and center.

• 15:28Ed Zitron?

  What happened there, just for the listeners?

• 15:30Speaker 06

  They divided AT&T up into, into pieces. And so, so, you know, not just forcing them to divest one piece of their business. And so, you know, with the ad tech case, again, there's, you know, there's settlements that can happen, there's appeals that will happen, but the argument for, you know, should Google have to divest not just its advertising, ad tech business, but also, you know, other areas of its business, I think becomes much stronger. You can imagine Chrome, you can imagine Android, you can imagine YouTube.

• 16:03Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, actually, here's a good question for you. I I know Chrome, and I'm sure many listeners know Chrome as a free browser, not really a business entity. How does selling off Chrome meaningfully help with the monopoly situation?

• 16:18Speaker 06

  Chrome, you know, Google's entire advertising business is based on targeting ads based on signals that it in data that it gathers from the various ways that it can touch the user. And so Chrome as a web browser is an incredible way to harvest data about how you're browsing the web and where you are, location, search, et cetera. And so, you know, where Google believes it has permission to use that data to target ads and train it into its machine learning and AI training that is very valuable.

• 16:57Ed Zitron?

  I didn't so wait, so Chrome, so this is perhaps I'm very stupid. So Chrome collects data on your browsing habits for every user?

• 17:05Speaker 06

  Not for every user, there's there's privacy, you know, settings and all sorts of things you can do. You can go into incognito mode. But if Google is acting as your browser, it has access to your browsing history and what you're doing on the web. And they can, where they believe they have the rights, they can use that data to help, you know, provide further information on both both for search, but also for, you know, what content to serve up and what ads to serve up. What they're actually doing becomes a bigger question.

• 17:42Ed Zitron?

  Right, so and was that not was that established at all trial?

• 17:46Speaker 06

  Not it was in the search in the search case that uh but it was more specifically focused on uh the default settings for for search from the browser, right? And so within Chrome, if you type in your location bar, you're always going to be doing a Google search. Uh that it's pretty clear that how that data thing gets passed from the browser to the search engine.

• 18:10Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, and if they have billions of users, then they can like everyone is searching using Google because they have because it's the default. That's so crazy, but the thing with Chrome as well is it isn't a revenue driver, is it? Like a direct source of revenue.

• 18:24Speaker 06

  For Google, uh, you know, it's if you if you think about the search case again, I mean, Google was paying Apple, you know, twenty five billion dollars. Let's say I'm estimating twenty was it was twenty billion a few years ago. But let's say twenty five billion dollars they were paying to Apple to be the default search on Safari and all of the access points on iOS. So Chrome technically is making revenue off of the search queries. It's just Google's pain itself, right? And so that's the that's the the issue.

• 18:58Ed Zitron?

  Well, the reason I bring that up is one of the remedies, the idea of selling Chrome off. Why would you like? What value would there be in Chrome if the whole value of it is to just be kind of a a flume towards Google like a like a kind like a waiter, like almost like a marketing arm of Google. If you sold off Chrome, surely it wouldn't have as much business value.

• 19:18Speaker 06

  It wouldn't have as much business value to Google. The whole point would be it'd be an independent business that would be making decisions. I mean, technically, a browser is supposed to be a user agent. It's supposed to be making decisions for the user and what what they value, right? So a a new Chrome.

• 19:35Ed Zitron?

  As an autonomous business like

• 19:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 19:37Ed Zitron?

  Because right now is it's not like people pay for it. It just doesn't feel like that is a practical thing to do. Because if the whole value proposition of it is that it's a free product that makes Google money and it doesn't make any money for anyone else, or like it isn't, you know what I mean?

• 19:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, so it could make a decision to point to, you know, a new Amazon search site or a

• 19:59Ed Zitron?

  Sure, but where they're gonna get the money?

• 20:00Speaker 06

  That gets into search, right? And so and get paid for it.

• 20:03Ed Zitron?

  Right. Yeah, I mean, it almost feels like this could lead to I don't want I'm not going to say the death of Google in the sense that Google will cease to be, but the death of modern Googles, we know it.

• 20:16Speaker 06

  It definitely, you know, all leads towards a very different Google, whether it be structurally different or just being hamstrung by the appeals of all these cases.

• 20:28Ed Zitron?

  So I mean, it's they I cannot think of anyone who got more lucky than it being Good Friday than Google right now because it's good. We're recording this on Good Friday. And it's like they didn't like the markets are closed. So they didn't immediately get the markets just pummeling them as they should because they've lost both now. They don't like whatever appeals they may do are not going to really, I don't think they're going to stop everything.

• 20:55Speaker 06

  Markets are complex. I would, I would hesitate to wonder, you know, to predict why the stock did what it did yesterday, even when the announcement came out. You know, there are some arguments that having to divest, you know, divest parts of the business could actually create more value back to shareholders.

• 21:12Ed Zitron?

  What value would that be?

• 21:14Speaker 06

  Well, typically when you spin things off, you often see a, or you sell things often the stock, you know, can go up because of, of that. And so, you know, are the, is the sum of the parts worth more than, than the whole, you know, those questions all come into play. But that's all, you know, that's all up to the markets. And sometimes the markets aren't as smart as we think they are, and they take time to understand and unpack things.

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• 22:32Speaker 03

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• 22:50Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel. People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood. And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 23:21Speaker 02

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 23:27Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 23:51Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, I agree. And I've seen the same thing with CoreWeave recently, which is a company that has driven me insane. Onto more sane things, though. So we're recording this, it's going to be next week, but the beginning of the remedies for the search trial is on the 21st. So what can people expect there?

• 24:09Speaker 06

  I don't think there's going to be as much excitement and drama as we saw with the with the actual liabilities trial. I think, you know, for the folks that follow the industry closely, what you should expect is all the AI companies are are involved. And so either through depositions, discovery and some testifying. So you've got Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft. So when you think about the shaping of the AI world going forward, you're going to have all the major players. Apple is Apple tried to actually intervene and and but the judge didn't allow them. So they've they've got a strong interest because they've got estimated to be, I think, ten to fifteen

• 24:54Speaker 06

  percent of their profits are tied to their Google deal.

• 24:57Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 24:57Speaker 06

  So.

• 24:58Ed Zitron?

  What? Because Google pays them to use just just for listeners. So Google pays Apple billions to have to be the default search, right?

• 25:07Speaker 06

  That's right. And the and the, you know, the remedies are that they can't do that anymore. And so the reason they weren't allowed to intervene, according to Judge Meadow, was because he didn't see a difference in Apple's interests from Google's interests. He basically said,

• 25:21Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 06

  you have the same interest. Yeah. So.

• 25:24Ed Zitron?

  Well, I mean, the the interest being that Apple needs Google to keep their monopoly so that Apple can keep getting a chunk of their revenue.

• 25:30Speaker 06

  That's exactly right. Yeah. So, yeah. So Apple cares a lot. Microsoft cares a lot. All the big players care. The testimonies is going to be ex a lot of experts and, you know, less CEOs.

• 25:44Ed Zitron?

  Who will be doing the testimonies?

• 25:46Speaker 06

  It'll be experts from both sides, like so academics that study these issues. It will be executives from the AI companies. I think we'll probably hear from Eddie Q again at Apple, who's one of their top executives. We'll probably hear from Sundar Pashay again from Google as CEO. They're on the list. So.

• 26:09Ed Zitron?

  And so in those two weeks, what's going to happen? So it's basically another trial to say how they will deal with their monopoly in search.

• 26:15Speaker 06

  That's right. And what I mean, I guess one thing that's interesting is they're still pretty far apart. So Google's proposed remedies for itself are basically a slap on the wrist. And, you know, kind of kind of embarrassing for anybody on, you know, that studies these things.

• 26:30Ed Zitron?

  So when you say a slap on the wrist, is it like a fine they're offering?

• 26:35Speaker 06

  No.

• 26:35Ed Zitron?

  What is Google offering them?

• 26:36Speaker 06

  They're offering some restrictions on the way they do things, but nothing that touches on structural separation in any way, shape or form, nothing that that prevents them from doing an Apple-like deal. And so it's, you know, the bare minimum that the only way I can read it, and I'm just, you know, spitballing here, but is that they're not giving an inch right now because they think either they can do some sort of transactional deal settlement with the current administration, or that they can win on appeal and they don't want to show their cards by moving the line in any way, because it's so far removed from the decision itself.

• 27:20Ed Zitron?

  Right, because if they got defensive, then they would they would kind of reveal their hand for when they go to appeal, you're saying?

• 27:27Speaker 06

  That's right. That's right.

• 27:29Ed Zitron?

  And so what is the Department of Justice? So the Department of Justice is saying they should sell off Chrome, or is there anything else they're asking for?

• 27:35Speaker 06

  They should sell off Chrome and divest Chrome. They may need to divest Android, but it basically says, let's see how that goes, but we can still do that. And then, very importantly, they're requiring them to share some data with other search engines that would help other search engines have a more level playing field. And as it relates to publishers, who, again, I do a lot of work for the, I work for the publishers, it requires Google to allow publishers to narrowly define what Google can crawl and use data

• 28:18Speaker 06

  for. And so the publisher can say, hey, you can crawl my website for the purpose of search, but you cannot then use it to train your, your AI engines. And so, yeah.

• 28:29Ed Zitron?

  And so the DOJ is pushing to make sure that's the case?

• 28:33Speaker 06

  The DOJ is very smartly understanding that if they don't put real constraints on Google around AI, then they're only addressing past behavior, but they're not actually making sure that there's a level playing field going forward in which you will won't be able to just abuse and run over the AI marketplace too.

• 28:54Ed Zitron?

  It really feels like we're kind of on the precipice of something changing in the next few years with the web, because if Google has to even share data from search, that will change, like, we will get competition in search for the first time, really meaningfully, in decade, like, decades, I guess, like, since the Lycos and AltaVista days, because these two cases are so inherently intertwined.

• 29:19Speaker 06

  Absolutely, yeah. And don't, and don't shortchange Gopher or, or Webcrawler in that.

• 29:26Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 06

  But yeah, there hasn't been other search engines since the late 90s.

• 29:31Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, no, I was, I said, I think I said excite, like, um, so, okay, changing, changing gears before we wrap up. You've been at the FTC case with, with Meta. How's that going? And also, what is that about?

• 29:44Speaker 06

  So that is about whether or not when Meta, when Facebook at the time acquired Instagram and WhatsApp, that they were doing that to maintain their monopoly power in a market for personal social networking services. And so that's, that is actually explicitly to break up Meta, so force them to divest WhatsApp and Instagram. And the testimony I saw was Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO, who was on the stand for, I don't know, roughly seven or eight hours, which is a lot for any CEO. He's, he's the key witness. And so now they're rolling into the other witnesses. I think it's going well, to answer your question, yeah.

• 30:27Ed Zitron?

  So what are some of the highlights of things that Marky Mark said?

• 30:32Speaker 06

  He, you know, he confirmed, there's a lot of emails in that case. And unlike the Google case where there was real problems with preservation of evidence and there were emails that were, and messaging that were deleted and all sorts of things that, by the way, Google's Kent Walker got slammed by the judge for, for not preserving evidence for like the third or fourth time now.

• 30:54Ed Zitron?

  And you, you mentioned that during our interviews as well, that the judge was pissed about this.

• 30:58Speaker 06

  The judge was pissed and it came out in her opinion, yeah. That abuse of attorney Client privilege. She basically said, the only, the way I read it was the only reason I'm not sanctioning you is because I found you liable of breaking the Sherman Act. So, and that's kind of what happened in the search case too. And it's kind of in the App Store case, they did get sanctioned. So there's the third antitrust loss that Google has in which they've been, you know, nailed by the judge and they've got more trials coming. So it's, it's a problem for them. And, and so the difference, the flip side of that is that Facebook and Meta, um, you know, there's a wealth of emails and, you know, Mark

• 31:37Speaker 06

  clearly ran the company very tightly and drove the product decisions very tightly. And, and he documented a lot of that in emails. And some of them are, are pretty damning. You know, I think the one that has always gotten the most attention is emails where he discussed, why would we buy Instagram? And focused in on the reasons of neutralizing a competitor and buying time. So neutralizing Instagram and buying time. And a lot of the contemporary, contemporaneous evidence shows that they were very, very concerned over a one year to 18 month period where Facebook was behind in moving to mobile. Instagram was growing very, very quickly. And they had screwed up by building the Facebook

• 32:23Speaker 06

  app for HTML5. That's a technical thing instead of their own native app and they were freaking out and, and there's a lot of emails about that.

• 32:31Ed Zitron?

  That's fascinating. So it re- and kind of returning to what I was saying previously as well. It feels like the results of these trials could just fundamentally rebuild the web because if Instagram was competitive with Facebook, by which I mean, they had to spin it off and make it its own company. And Google could no longer monopolize all the parts of the ads. It's going to change the economics of everything underlying the internet because the internet is mostly paid for by ads.

• 32:58Speaker 06

  That's right. That last part's really, really important, Ed, that you're making is.

• 33:02Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 06

  We're talking about a lot of the user behaviors and stuff, but there's a hundred and whatever, forty billion dollars of, of US digital advertising that goes to those two companies I would get, you know, estimating. And so most of the growth in digital advertising over the last decade has gone to Google and, and Facebook in some way, shape or form. And, and so the, how does it affect the advertising business becomes really, really important to all this.

• 33:27Ed Zitron?

  And the way it would affect it is it could be cheaper for advertising, but it could also be more chaotic because especially with Meta's advertising product, from what I understand, it's like almost the equivalent of Google Max in that you put, you give Meta money and it goes into the greater metaverse. I don't mean, I mean that with a cap. Damn, I can't say that shit. But it goes into the greater meta series of products in the same way that Google Max, you put money in and it goes across all of Google's stuff. That being broken up would be like Google, like 90 something percent of Meta's revenue is ads as well. Like this would destroy the company potentially.

• 34:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, they, you know, they're 96, 97% of their business is advertising. And so you imagine a world where advertisers are buying through a different buy platform or a neutral one, let's call it a neutral one that actually can buy ads on Instagram versus the Facebook app and actually make decisions on that in real time of what's best for the advertiser.

• 34:30Ed Zitron?

  They, I feel like they're also have to compete for business in the way they've never had to, or like justify their business and provide analytics that they don't already.

• 34:37Speaker 06

  I've always asked the question of like when Facebook started to, you know, really get described as a, a toxic waste dump in like, I'd put like 2018, 2019, where they started to just run into some real difficulties. Like Instagram, if I were Instagram, I would have acted differently if I wasn't part of the, of the, the larger corporation, right? And, and they probably Instagram would have put the screws to Facebook at that time and vice versa, you know? And, and so it really changes the dynamic of those two platforms where they're actually having to compete with each other, both for users and for ads. Um, the, the, the parent company, the brand is, you know, one of the least, you know, according to like the, the Axios Reputation Survey, it's like number 99 or

• 35:21Speaker 06

  something like that in the hundred brands. So like the brand is significantly challenged despite the success of the company. So.

• 35:29Ed Zitron?

  So as we wrap up, it almost, I, I know that we like this show is not necessarily the most optimistic, but I kind of feel a little optimistic seeing all of this stuff. It feels like there could be a better internet that comes out of it.

• 35:43Speaker 06

  I agree with that and I also, you know, make a broader point that it does make me optimistic to see courts doing what they're supposed to be doing, judges actually understanding the complexity of technology, having, you know, attorneys that can describe it to the courts in a way that, that, you know, can be applied to antitrust law that's been around for more than a century. And by the way, it should be said too, that these cases were brought by the Trump administration through a Biden administration, now they're being enforced and we're getting decisions under a Trump administration again. So they're incredibly bipartisan. And I had a chance to testify a few weeks ago in front of the antitrust committee and that was incredibly bipartisan too. And so these are, these are issues that

• 36:28Speaker 06

  stretch across the parties that are, was pretty unique in this, in this current moment.

• 36:32Ed Zitron?

  And it kind of feels like the, the doomerists out there are saying, oh, he'll, they'll just pay off Trump. But, and it doesn't even feel, it feels like the administrations, both of them kind of had the same willingness to do this.

• 36:47Speaker 06

  That's right. I mean, the Wall Street Journal reported-

• 36:49Ed Zitron?

  Though obviously we don't know.

• 36:50Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, but the Wall Street Journal reported that, that Mark Zuckerberg met with the Trump, with Trump administration or Trump himself, I think three times in the last few months and offered to settle for $450 million and the FCC wanted $30 billion. And so you can see that there's a pretty, a pretty big delta between the two. And I think the Trump administration understands why these issues are issues regardless of party and politics. And too much power in the hands of, you know, too little people is always a problem. So.

• 37:26Ed Zitron?

  Couldn't agree more. All right, Jason, where can people find you?

• 37:29Speaker 06

  They can find me on Twitter at Jason underscore Kent on Blue Sky. They can always email me at DCN's website. I'm around. I'm always looking to engage. So thank you very much.

• 37:39Ed Zitron?

  Such a pleasure to have you, sir. And you can of course find me on the internet, Google the man who killed Google search. That's how you find me. This has been Better Offline. I'm Ed Zitron. Thank you. You're gonna hear a very similar message to follow.

• 37:59Ed Zitron?

  Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's your ed dot app to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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