Google Is A Monopoly...

It's happened. Judge Leonie Brinkema has ruled that Google has knowingly been anti-competitive in the ad space. This will benefit businesses in the long run and hopefully will make the ad space more obtainable for more businesses.

From Search Engine Land:

The details. From the ruling:

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google “willfully engaged in anticompetitive acts” to control the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets.

The court found Google illegally tied its publisher ad server and ad exchange together through both contracts and technical integration.

Google’s practices “substantially harmed” publishers and users across the web.

Why we care. This marks Google’s second significant antitrust defeat after losing its search monopoly case earlier. The ruling could fundamentally reshape online advertising.

With both of these loses on the books for the search giant, we might actually see a change in the landscape in both search and pay-per-click advertising.

This ruling, along with the previous one, might lead to Google having to sell its Chrome browser and making even more concessions.

For now, the court needs to determine the right remedies for Google’s ad tech monopoly violations, which could possibly involve major structural changes to its ad business.

Google's Not The Only One In The Crosshairs!

The Federal Trade Commission along with 17 states have sued Amazon in 2023 and Meta is currently in court defending their ownership of Instagram and WhatsApp.

What do you think? Are we finally going to see the Web 2.0 behemoths get what they deserve? Is the latest ruling against Google good for marketers, businesses, and consumers? Hit reply and let me know you're thoughts!

The Latest From The Entrepreneur's Enigma Podcast

Leverage Your Influence Appearance!

Web Jawn

Digital Ad Revenue Surges 15% YoY in 2024, Climbing to $259B, According to IAB

Digital ad revenue surges, driven by video, AI, and retail media growth. Discover key trends shaping 2025. Read the press release.

IABKeirsten Hansen

Podcasting is a $2 billion industry! Holy cow!

Discord Begins Testing Facial Scans for Age Verification

Some countries have passed strict new laws dictating youth access to digital platforms.

GizmodoThomas Maxwell

What could possibly go wrong? 😖

New Jersey Sues Discord for Allegedly Failing to Protect Children

The New Jersey attorney general claims Discord’s features to keep children under 13 safe from sexual predators and harmful content are inadequate.

WIREDJustin Ling

I'm not saying Discord can't do more to protect the younger set. NJ thinks so too.

Apple and Google eye the future of AI glasses

Can they beat Meta? In the short term, probably not.

ComputerworldMike Elgan

AI sunglasses could have a real benefit to society. The idea of having an AI brain in your glasses, so long as they don't look awful is compelling. Meta has a head start. Can Apple and Google catch up? Mike Elgan has a good take on it.

Claude’s big upgrade supposedly does deep research faster than ChatGPT

Anthropic launched two new features for Claude AI, a fast Research tool and Google Workspace integration for Gmail, Calendar, and Docs data.

BGRChris Smith

Claude vs. ChatGPT. Man, this is going to ever changing.

Microsoft’s “1‑bit” AI model runs on a CPU only, while matching larger systems

Future AI might not need supercomputers thanks to models like BitNet b1.58 2B4T.

Ars TechnicaKyle Orland

This is good. Less power means better-ish for the environment.

Bluesky may soon add blue check verification | TechCrunch

Changes spotted in Bluesky’s codebase indicate the app may soon get a blue check verification system, similar to the look of Twitter’s.

TechCrunchMaxwell Zeff

They can't even handle support requests, how the heck are they going to do this? Also isn't this what the domain name screen name for? I don't think Bluesky has any intention of decentralizing its network. 💩

Bluesky, censorship and country-based moderation

This week, Bluesky hid accounts in for users in Turkey after a government order. I take a closer look at government censorship and ATProto, how geographic moderation labelers work, and the impact on the future of decentralised social networks.

fediversereport.comLaurens Hof

A good take on what's going on with moderation at a country level on Bluesky.

Yes, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said ‘A1’ in response about AI

The education secretary was answering a question about technology in schools.

Snopes.comLaerke Christensen

Facepalm🤦 This happened! Geezus.

OpenAI’s new reasoning AI models hallucinate more | TechCrunch

OpenAI’s reasoning AI models are getting better, but their hallucinating isn’t, according to benchmark results.

TechCrunchMaxwell Zeff

Well this is a good thing. 🙄

If I ran Mastodon

A community platform for a vibrant, diverse social web.

Werd I/OBen Werdmuller

A great take from Ben Werdmuller. A worthwhile read.

Ubisoft Surprises with Its Open Source Move

Ubisoft has open sourced one of its internal projects.

It's FOSS NewsSourav Rudra

This is promising.

A new kids’ show will come with a crypto wallet when it debuts this fall | TechCrunch

A new animated kids’ series expected to premiere this year won’t be headed for a TV network. Or a streaming service. Instead, the founders of A new animated kids’ series won’t be headed for a TV network. Instead, the production studio plans to launch on a decentralized web platform that uses blockchain technology.

TechCrunchLauren Forristal

Oh geezus. 🙄🤦😖💩

If I ran Bluesky Product

What Musk is branding, Bluesky may build.

Werd I/OBen Werdmuller

Another take from Ben Werdmuller, on running product for Bluesky.

WordPress 6.8 released – what new features are there? - Dwi’n Rhys

A look at WordPress 6.8 New features, including speculative loading, and improved security with passwords.

Dwi'n RhysRhys Wynne

A good run-through of what's new in WordPress 6.8. Rhys is worth following.

The Impact Spotify’s Video Has on Publishers - Sounds Profitable

It’s time to talk about Spotify Video and Streaming Audio and how podcasting should carry itself going forward.

Sounds Profitable - The business of podcastingBryan Barletta

A strong take on Spotify and its impact on video.

Defining Minor Releases for WordPress 6.8.x - Aaron Jorbin

WordPress is changing (for at least the time being) to a yearly major release schedule. While this isn’t a decision I completely agree with, I think it’s important to disagree and commit which means making sure that the Minor Release process is set up for success. Here are five things I think we should do […]

Aaron Jorbinjorbin

This is a great primer on understanding the releases in WordPress and often in other open source projects as well.

Sam Altman Admits That Saying “Please” and “Thank You” to ChatGPT Is Wasting Millions of Dollars in Computing Power

Sam Altman says OpenAI is spending “tens of millions of dollars” processing chatbot queries made with proper etiquette.

FuturismJoe Wilkins

This makes sense, but still made me laugh! 🤣😁✌️

🎙️Podcast Coaching 🎙️

I've been podcasting since 2010. During those 12+ years I've learned a thing or two about the ins and outs of the industry and approaching it the right way.

I've decided to offer podcast coaching as a service to share the knowledge that I've accumulated over the decade-plus in the industry.

More information click here.

Web Find

Worthy of a watch, especially with what's going on with Elon Musk and DOGE. Check out Chris Wink's newsletter too!

Yes! Yes!

monkeys.zip

Simulate monkeys for Shakespeare!

monkeys.zip .s0 { fill: #d0e8eb } .s1 { fill: #808080 } .s2 { opacity: 1;fill: #142020 }

I love the Web 💗

Why do AI company logos look like buttholes?

A humorous exploration of the uncanny resemblance between AI company logos and human anatomy. Discover why circular, gradient-based designs dominate the AI industry, and what this design convergence tells us about branding in tech.

ROTFL. 🤣

That's It For This Week! Keep Rocking It!

-Seth

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