Speaker 1: It is time for Tech Tuesday with Mike Duboski, who
Speaker 1: is the ABC News technology reporter who joins us. Mike
Speaker 1: is always thank you so much for joining us. Now
Speaker 1: some enormously huge news which somehow has not gotten Well,
Speaker 1: we know why it has not gotten the attention that
Speaker 1: it should get because of the issue with tariffs and
Speaker 1: now the Pope, et cetera. But that is the trial
Speaker 1: of Google, and the judge looking at it already viewed
Speaker 1: Google as a monopoly.
Speaker 2: What is going on and what is going to happen?
Speaker 3: This, of course, is the Google search engine monopoly case
Speaker 3: decided last year by a judge who ruled that Google
Speaker 3: was operating an illegal monopoly in the world of online
Speaker 3: search engines, that it wasn't just creating a product that
Speaker 3: people like to use and therefore was popular as a result,
Speaker 3: but rather was using its market power, it's billions of dollars,
Speaker 3: it's troves of data with regards to how people search online,
Speaker 3: to muscle out competitors and make for an anti competitive
Speaker 3: environment and therefore a less good competitive market for consumers.
Speaker 2: Okay, with that being said.
Speaker 1: Let me interrupt for a moment. If the judge has
Speaker 1: already ruled that's the case. What is this trial about.
Speaker 3: This trial is about what to do about it. Essentially,
Speaker 3: this is how we figure out what the remedy of
Speaker 3: that monopoly is going to be. This is expected to
Speaker 3: be a three week hearing. It kicked off yesterday in Washington,
Speaker 3: d C. And there are many potential remedies on the
Speaker 3: table here. The Department of Justice is going pretty big
Speaker 3: in this case. One of those remedies would be to
Speaker 3: force Google to sell off Google Chrome, which is their
Speaker 3: very popular web browser, also the driver of a lot
Speaker 3: of Google search traffic, about thirty five percent according to
Speaker 3: the federal government. They are also targeting some of the
Speaker 3: deals Hello hello.
Speaker 2: Oh there you go. I'm sorry, we're glitching up there.
Speaker 3: So at the time Tuesday, you know that's gonna come.
Speaker 2: That's part of the Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 1: It's a great time for this thing to fall apart
Speaker 1: on Tech Tuesday. So I think you had just said
Speaker 1: that some of the remedies Chrome may go by the wayside,
Speaker 1: and what.
Speaker 3: Else Chrome could go by the wayside. Also, Google has
Speaker 3: spent many billions of dollars striking deals with Apple and
Speaker 3: Samsung and others to be the default search engine on devices. Right,
Speaker 3: So if you go to the Safari web browser on
Speaker 3: your iPhone, you need to type something in not a
Speaker 3: web dress or anything like that. You just type in
Speaker 3: a term you're going to do a Google search, right.
Speaker 3: And Google spends many billions of dollars for that privilege,
Speaker 3: according to the government, and according to a court, is
Speaker 3: anti competitive because it doesn't give consumers the choice of
Speaker 3: what search engine to use in that scenario. So the
Speaker 3: government is asking a judge to force Google to unwind
Speaker 3: some of those deals, and Google says that they're open
Speaker 3: to that possibility of potentially renegotiating some of those deals,
Speaker 3: despite the fact that they're a huge part of their business.
Speaker 3: But they say that going any further than that, forcing
Speaker 3: them to break up the company by selling off Google
Speaker 3: Chrome and to crack down on some other aspects of
Speaker 3: their business, would be going too far. So that's what
Speaker 3: they have to decide in court this week. It's not
Speaker 3: the only anti trust trial that Google is facing. Just
Speaker 3: a few days ago, they were ruled to be operating
Speaker 3: an illegal monopoly in the world of online advertising as well.
Speaker 3: It's the second week of the Facebook anti trust trial,
Speaker 3: and the DOJ is also leveraging cases against Apple, the
Speaker 3: FTC against Amazon Bill. What this means it's a tough
Speaker 3: time to be a tech executive in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Except there, Let's say they spin off these various companies.
Speaker 1: Now they're competing against those companies. And obviously if they
Speaker 1: are spinning off and getting cash, they're going to be
Speaker 1: so cash rich it's ridiculous. They're going to be able
Speaker 1: to buy entire countries. But it do you foresee legitimate competition?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: And will they stay and will they stay in the business.
Speaker 3: It's a good question, right. We don't really know what
Speaker 3: a future without a dominant Google Search looks like. Right,
Speaker 3: And Google has been making the argument in court that
Speaker 3: spinning off Google Chrome would kill Google Chrome, right, that
Speaker 3: it just needs to be a part of Google in
Speaker 3: order to operate. There's also the question of who would
Speaker 3: buy it, right. Google is a one point eight trillion
Speaker 3: dollar company. A lot of that valuation comes from its
Speaker 3: cadra of services like Google Chrome. Who could afford a
Speaker 3: company like Google Chrome if they were to sell it off,
Speaker 3: and would that attract the attention of antitrust regulators? Again,
Speaker 3: So those are the questions that are facing the government,
Speaker 3: right now that's kind of what they have to prove
Speaker 3: in court to this judge saying that this is the
Speaker 3: actual only remedy. It's actually really difficult to break up
Speaker 3: a company. That's not the way our system usually does things.
Speaker 3: The plaintifs in this case need to prove that that's
Speaker 3: the only option, right, They need to take every other
Speaker 3: possibility off the table before a judge would ultimately side
Speaker 3: in that case. But even still, the government is going
Speaker 3: after them in that regard. Another big part of this
Speaker 3: is search engine data. Right every time you google something,
Speaker 3: Google learns a little bit about you and learns about
Speaker 3: the search engine habits of Americans. The Department of Justice
Speaker 3: is also asking a judge to make Google make that
Speaker 3: information freely available. Right now, it's proprietary to Google. One
Speaker 3: of the reasons they say that Google has become dominant
Speaker 3: is because other competitors don't have access to as wide
Speaker 3: a trove of information as as Art Eagle does.
Speaker 1: Mike Weird new truck out there that de Bezos is backing.
Speaker 2: What is this about? Because I love new You know,
Speaker 2: we have not had years where nothing new.
Speaker 1: We have had years where nothing new has come up,
Speaker 1: And then the last few years. It has exploded with
Speaker 1: new companies, new products, new vehicles.
Speaker 2: So what's this one about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, speaks to just how hard it is to build
Speaker 3: cars in the industry. But thanks to flush you know,
Speaker 3: VC cash, there are now you know, a whole lot
Speaker 3: of new startups kind of floating around out there. The
Speaker 3: latest one is Slate Auto and this is one to
Speaker 3: keep an eye on this week. This is a new
Speaker 3: automaker that's promising a small electric pickup truck for just
Speaker 3: twenty five thousand dollars. There's really nothing else out there
Speaker 3: that is a pickup truck that is twenty five thousand
Speaker 3: dollars that runs on battery power. There are vanishingly few
Speaker 3: cars out there for twenty five thousand dollars anymore. And
Speaker 3: this is a pretty big promise. Tesla for a long
Speaker 3: time was promising a thirty five thousand dollars electric vehicle,
Speaker 3: but they were never quite able to get that over
Speaker 3: the line. So this is a pretty ambitious project. But
Speaker 3: even still, speaking of that VC cash, this company has
Speaker 3: been able to raise over one hundred and ten million
Speaker 3: dollars in Series A funding. One of those major investors
Speaker 3: is Jeff Bezos, so some big names attached to this
Speaker 3: and throwing their name behind this new company. What we
Speaker 3: know about the truck is kind of sparse at this point.
Speaker 3: There have been a couple prototypes, a couple mock ups
Speaker 3: cropping up around, particularly like trendy neighborhoods in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: for people to take pick of, but there's no details
Speaker 3: on it. In fact, one reporter was able to climb
Speaker 3: under one of those models and discover that there's actually
Speaker 3: not an engine in it. It's just kind of a
Speaker 3: model that they've put there for people to look at.
Speaker 3: We are expected to get more details on this thing
Speaker 3: when it is officially unveiled later this week on Thursday, So.
Speaker 2: We don't know when it's coming out. Any idea or
Speaker 2: the range or.
Speaker 1: The actual price. Is that a We hope to be
Speaker 1: able to do it for twenty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I think we're going to get more information on all
Speaker 3: of those fronts on Thursday when it is officially unveiled.
Speaker 3: The target seems to be twenty five thousand dollars, and
Speaker 3: they seem to be pretty committed to, if not exactly
Speaker 3: that number, somewhere close to it. In fact, one of
Speaker 3: the early reports here indicates that the car will have
Speaker 3: optional air conditioning, Which when was the last time that
Speaker 3: you remembered optional air conditioning in a vehicle? That seems
Speaker 3: to be a tactic that they are using to get
Speaker 3: this thing under that twenty five thousand dollars mark. It's
Speaker 3: really difficult, right, mass producing a car at scale, especially
Speaker 3: when you're startup, is an expensive proposition, right. You have
Speaker 3: to contact suppliers, you have to spin up factories, hire workers,
Speaker 3: do marketing and all that sort of thing that costs
Speaker 3: a lot of money that's eventually transferred onto the cost
Speaker 3: of the car. Does seem like there's some pretty deep
Speaker 3: pocketed investors behind this company that might be able to
Speaker 3: absorb some of that cost. But will this be a
Speaker 3: going concern? Will this be something that lasts? I think
Speaker 3: that remains to be seen. It's also going to be
Speaker 3: interesting for me to just look at, you know, who
Speaker 3: is this targeted at?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Is this an everyday person's car? Is this designed to
Speaker 3: be a commuter vehicle for people who you know might
Speaker 3: need a small pickup truck like this? Or is this
Speaker 3: for work? Right? Is this for small businesses? Some of
Speaker 3: the mockups that have been cropping up have had little
Speaker 3: attachments to the back of them to go over the
Speaker 3: bed of the pickup truck, a little sort of coverings
Speaker 3: or they kind of make it look a little bit different.
Speaker 3: So it seems to be aimed kind of at small
Speaker 3: businesses and people who use the vehicle for that purpose.
Speaker 3: But again, we just don't know for sure yet.
Speaker 1: How about those other companies that have come out. You've
Speaker 1: got Rivian, you have I'm trying to think.
Speaker 2: Of yeh, Lucid. Yeah, I haven't even seen.
Speaker 1: A Lucid vehicle out there. I've seen some Rivians. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how are they? How are they doing? Is there anybody
Speaker 1: succeeding other than Tesla.
Speaker 3: Well, it's kind of an open question whether Tesla is
Speaker 3: still succeeding really. I mean, they have good point to
Speaker 3: a point, but we are expected to get information on
Speaker 3: their latest quarterly earnings later today. That's going to be
Speaker 3: kind of our clearest look yet into the actions of
Speaker 3: Elon Musk and whether that's having an impact on his
Speaker 3: electric vehicle business. With regards to Rivian and Lucid, those
Speaker 3: kind of seem to be the most prominent electric vehicle
Speaker 3: startups out there as opposed to Tesla. Rivian makes electric trucks.
Speaker 3: Lucid makes an electric sedan. They are about to bring
Speaker 3: an electric suv to market. I actually got a chance
Speaker 3: to drive it last week at the New York International
Speaker 3: Auto Show. It's a really interesting new product. They are
Speaker 3: backed by the Saudi Investment Fund, which is a hugely
Speaker 3: you know, wealthy investment fund out there, so they have
Speaker 3: some some backing behind them. But again they're not really
Speaker 3: making money just yet. Rivian, on the other hand, has
Speaker 3: major partnerships with the likes of Ford and used to
Speaker 3: be with Amazon as well, so it's really not even
Speaker 3: about selling a car and making you know, a margin
Speaker 3: on each individual vehicle. It's kind of about what relationships
Speaker 3: that you're able to strike. So that's kind of where
Speaker 3: they find themselves right now.
Speaker 2: All right, Mike, thank you always, great information. You have
Speaker 2: a good day.
Speaker 3: You do too. Take care.