NOA Recording

For Noah, this is Les Smith reading from the Telegraph, where on the 12th of September 2023, James Titcomb writes how Google’s antitrust lawsuit could hurt it even if it wins.

The moment that Bill Gates turned from boy wonder geek to ruthless capitalist symbol is easy to pinpoint.

It was captured on camera.

The Microsoft cofounder and chief executive, who had become the world’s richest man in 1995, had been the face of a bright new digital era in which millions of households were able to buy their first computer.

But It’s videotaped deposition, released as part of the US government’s landmark monopoly case against Microsoft in 1998, presented him as evasive, rude, and superior.

It took years for Gates, who believed the tape would never be shown to the public, to rebuild his reputation.

It took Microsoft even longer.

While the company avoided being broken up in the legal battle which centered around its dominance of the PC market, the years of litigation have been cited as a key reason why the company missed out on a new generation of technology such as Internet search, social media and smartphones.

Starting on September the 12th, the courtroom in Washington DC will host the biggest tech monopoly case since the government came close to breaking up Microsoft the quarter of a century ago.

Its subject is Google, one of the companies that took the innovation crown from Gates’s business.

Google is being sued by the US Justice Department under the same 19th century law used to go after Microsoft, and is accused of using similar tactics.

In this case, prosecutors allege that the company used a web of illegal deals to freeze out competitors to its search engine, cementing its own vicelike grip over the web.

The agency is seeking an order forcing Google to stop its behavior, but a judge could go as far as a breakup of the company.

Like Microsoft at the turn of the Millennium, Google is also reckoning with a change in tide in the tech industry.