Google vs. Meta: The Vergecast on the Digital Civil Rights Case in the Search Trial (with an appendix by David and Nilay Heath)

The decision comes as Google and the DOJ are getting ready to meet in another federal court across the river in DC for the remedies phase of the search trial. The DOJ under the Biden administration proposed breaking up Google and forcing it to syndicate its search results.

Judge Brinkema, like Judge Mehta in the search case, warned the company to preserve internal communications because of an app that deleted records of chats. She adds that while this “may well be sanctionable,” the court didn’t need to sanction the company in this case as it was able to make its decision using testimony and admitted evidence.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Alex Heath joins Nilay and David to talk through what the Google ruling means (with as little ad-tech talk as possible, we promise), as well as what it was like to be in the Meta courtroom all week. The case against Meta seems dubious, and might have too much on the power of MeWe. There are many unanswered questions about the two social media platforms, and that one is just beginning.

After that, we talk about some big news in the AI world. OpenAI is working on a social network, with plans to rival X and become the place people do… something. Do they want to post their ripoff photos? Make funny jokes with the help of ChatGPT? Express themselves in new, awesome, creative ways? Who knows? But OpenAI’s ambition knows no bounds, and the AI industry is coming for practically every other product you use.

Finally, in the lightning round, it’s time for another round of Brendan Carr is a Dummy. Allison Johnson has an investigation into the five-year-old camera everyone is suddenly obsessed with, and why Microsoft wants to be a part of the Switch 2.