Google says it will appeal online search antitrust decision
Alphabet's Google on Saturday said it will appeal an antitrust decision under which a federal judge proposed less aggressive ways to restore online search competition than the 10-year regime suggested by antitrust enforcers.
"We will wait for the court's opinion. And we still strongly believe the Court's original decision was wrong, and look forward to our eventual appeal," Google said in a post on X.
US district judge Amit Mehta in Washington heard closing arguments on Friday at a trial on proposals to address Google's illegal monopoly in online search and related advertising.
In April a federal judge said that Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, with the US department of justice (DOJ) saying that Google should sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company's publisher ad server and its ad exchange.
The DOJ and a coalition of states want Google to share search data and cease multibillion-dollar payments to Apple and other smartphone makers to be the default search engine on new devices.
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The Citizen
a day ago
- The Citizen
Google Open Buildings helping strengthen community resilience
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Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Daily Maverick
In the age of AI, content is everywhere — but are we still telling stories that matter?
Content might be multiplying, but is it connecting? Is it resonating in the way great stories once did – not just engaging but anchoring us? Last week on Substack, AI marketing expert Charlie Hills penned a sharp, clear-eyed provocation: Content is Dead. Long Live Connection. It caught me off guard and held me there. Not because content is dead (it's not – it's alive, omnipresent, flooding our screens in formats we couldn't have imagined five years ago), but because Charlie is right to point us towards the deeper issue: connection. Content might be multiplying, but is it connecting? Is it resonating in the way great stories once did – not just engaging but anchoring us? That question has never been more urgent. We're living through a supercharged shift – a reformatting of reality – as artificial intelligence enters its next act. The race to create has become a sprint. With just a few prompts, almost anyone can make anything. Art. Music. Dialogue. Essays. Sales decks. Songs. Films. It's dazzling. And yet – it's also flattening. Because what we're seeing now isn't just a technological leap. It's a philosophical one. One where the difference between originality and replication, between human thought and predictive patterning, is collapsing in plain sight. The race to the bottom of the brainstem 2.0 Back in 2017, Tristan Harris – former Google design ethicist turned activist and leading voice of the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma – warned of a phenomenon he called the race to the bottom of the brainstem. Platforms weren't just competing for time or clicks, he argued. They were competing for the most primitive parts of our brain: our instincts, our fears, our compulsions. Whatever could trigger outrage or anxiety – that's what won the attention war. The consequences are now well known: fractured focus, polarisation, social fatigue, and perhaps most disturbingly, a generation trained to skim, not think. But what's unfolding now feels like a spiritual sequel to that. A new race. This time, not towards the base of the brain, but towards the end of originality. Because AI doesn't think. It predicts. It doesn't dream or deliberate or dissent. It calculates likelihoods – what's most probable, based on patterns of the past. It does this with extraordinary sophistication, but its engine is built not on insight, but inference. And so, just as Harris warned us about platforms hijacking attention, today we face the subtle creep of something just as worrying: the erosion of human uniqueness through the mass rehashing of content. Is content dead? Its intentions appear warped To be clear: content isn't dead. It's thriving in volume. We have never had so much access to ideas, essays, videos, podcasts and posts. But the question is no longer how much, but how meaningful. 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It's not easy when someone hands you a magic wand to stop tapping things, I know. But time is a wonderful thing. Time to think, to read or for a long-overdue lunch with friends. The greatest threat AI poses is not to employment, but to enchantment – to the spontaneity and serendipity that defines art, love, humour and originality. And we must see that our kids will need this mentorship in connection and relationship as time goes on. LinkedIn's demise Nowhere is this shift more visible than on LinkedIn. What once felt like a platform for raw professional reflection – real people, real ideas – is slowly becoming an uncanny valley of templated inspiration and machine-stitched leadership. You can sense the AI-ness. The bland polish. The synthetic sincerity. It sounds right, but it feels wrong. The solution isn't to quit. It's to reclaim tone. To sound like yourself. To say things that don't sound like anyone else could say them. To use tools for acceleration, but let you do the speaking. 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IOL News
2 days ago
- IOL News
Malatsi's insights on Starlink and South Africa's digital sovereignty
Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi said the country's current cloud market's value is expected to surge to beyond R130 billion in 2028, and that major international players such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are key contributors to this growth. Image: X / IOLGraphics Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi, used his address at the Sentech Africa Tech Week to explain the country's approach to its digital sovereignty and the recent gazette he issued to bring the country in line with international best practice. The conference is currently under way at the Century City Conference Centre in Cape Town and has featured talks by mayco member for Economic Growth James Vos, Sentech CEO Tebogo Leshope, Topco Media CEO Ralf Fletcher, Data and also AI Specialist Manav Daby, among others. Malatsi delivered his address to tech innovators, and leaders where his speech focused on 'South Africa's Strategic Approach to Data Sovereignty'. Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi, right, seen talking to Sentech CEO, Tebogo Leshope, at the Sentech Africa Tech Week taking place in Cape Town. Image: Supplied Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading He said the country's current cloud market's value is expected to surge to beyond R130 billion in 2028, and that major international players such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are key contributors to this growth. 'This growth does not only represent our increased technological capacity, but it represents jobs for young people, skills development for the future economy, and improved service delivery. 'Looking forward, our strategic approach to data sovereignty will focus on maintaining the competitiveness of the local cloud market, while staying responsive to the rapidly evolving needs and capacities of this sector,' Malatsi said. The conference is currently underway at the Century City Conference Centre in Cape Town and has featured talks by Mayco Member for Economic Growth, James Vos, Image: Supplied He said he understood that the country's regulatory role is critical for private sector investment. "We are consistently driving to maintain the resilience and relevance of cyber security mechanisms so that we can earn and invest trust in our national digital ecosystem. 'Data sovereignty means little without cyber resilience. Having our data physically located within our boundaries is only one piece of the puzzle. We must also ensure that it is encrypted, it is monitored, and recoverable in the face of threats.' Speaking on the sideline of the conference, Malatsi said the recent policy directive proposal to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) requires it to investigate whether to open up applications for individual electronic communications network services (ECNS) licences. The directive coincided with engagements between Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump during a trip to the US - including controversial suggestions that Elon Musk's Starlink should be given priority in the country. 'The protection of the country's data is sacrosanct, and that is the case for every country in the world. What we equally have to do is ensure that we keep abreast with international best practice in this case. 'We (also) have to ensure that we are properly equipped to respond to the threats that exist in this space, where there are constant efforts by nefarious elements, globally, to intercept state data to gain unauthorised access to it, and to ensure that in the unlikely event that such happens, we can retrieve it promptly, quickly and protect citizens from any potential harm.' Sentech CEO, Tebogo Leshope. Image: Supplied Leshope, who separately was addressing how satellite technology is used for innovation, said: 'Innovation nowadays happens on top of a base… All the other innovations happening on top of satellite technology include connecting cars, connecting human beings and all those opportunities that come with that. 'If you fall behind on the base of it, you won't be able to participate first on the innovation side, and you won't be able to leverage that particular solution. 'So that is how far behind you can become. All the future innovation and development that is going to happen there, which will be to the benefit of your communities, you are going to miss out. Now we can connect our communities far cheaper with those solutions, but if you don't have a base, and you're not part, you lose out on that, and you remain on the most expensive terrestrial options.' Cape Argus
