Fate of Google’s search empire could rest in Trump’s hands

It would be unusual for Trump to meddle with the DOJ’s ongoing litigation, antitrust expert George Hay told Business Insider, but then again, “Trump is a bit more of a wild card.”

“It’s very rare that, at the presidential level, there’s any attempt to influence the course of cases which have already been filed. Those have a life of their own,” Hay said. “They depend on the judge, the courts, the lawyers who carry on a case. It’s extraordinarily unusual for the administration to become at all active.”

Trump may still feel some ownership over the DOJ’s investigation into Google’s core business since it began in 2019 under his administration, and tensions between Trump and Google have not diminished much since. The Verge noted that Trump warned Google to “be careful” in August because he “had a feeling Google is going to be close to shut down.” And earlier this year, Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, called for Google’s breakup on X (formerly Twitter), proclaiming that a stop to Google’s “monopolistic control of information” was “long overdue.”

Trump’s on-and-off feud with Google

For Trump, disabling Google’s search monopoly might feel personal, as he has spent years accusing Google of manipulating results to disfavor him.

His feud with Google appear to have begun in 2016 when Trump falsely accused Google of manipulating votes, claiming Google wanted to make it appear that he didn’t have a “big victory” over Hillary Clinton, CNN reported.

The feud continued through the 2020 election, Politico reported, with Trump warning Google that his administration was “watching Google very closely” after a former Google employee went on Fox News to claim that Google search results were biased against Trump. Google disputed the employee’s report.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/fate-of-googles-search-empire-could-rest-in-trumps-hands/