The government’s plan to break up Google

For two decades, Google Search has been unstoppable. Invincible. So thoroughly dominant that would-be competitors often couldn’t even get funding, because investors didn’t see the point in trying. But earlier this year, a judge declared that Google’s power, and the way the company wields it, was an illegal monopoly. And so now the US Department of Justice has to figure out how to undo it.

We try to figure out whether any of these proposals are likely to come to pass — there’s still a lot of legal process left before anything here is final — and what it would mean for Google, and the internet, if they did. We also try to guess what the incoming Trump administration might think about all this, and how the case could change in the next few months.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Google and the DOJ:

And in AI and gadget news:

And in the lightning round: