US judge orders Google to share search data with rivals
Big news: a US judge just told Google it has to share its massive trove of search data with rival companies.
The order, announced Tuesday by Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, is meant to shake up Google's monopoly on search and give other players a fair shot.
Basically, Google now has to open up some of its secret sauce from trillions of searches so competitors can actually compete.
Judge stops short of full-on breakup
While this is a big move for competition, the judge didn't go as far as some hoped—Google gets to keep Chrome and those super-lucrative deals that make it the default search engine on most devices (which bring in over $26 billion a year).
This ruling lands right as AI tools like ChatGPT are starting to challenge Google's dominance online.
It's another sign that regulators are getting serious about keeping Big Tech in check without breaking them up completely.