A $20bn Search Engine w/ Michelle Meagher

A $20bn Search Engine w/ Michelle Meagher

Google has finally been judged to be a monopoly by a federal court — while this was strikingly obvious already, what does this judgement mean? Is this too little too late?

This week Alix and Prathm were joined by Michelle Meagher, an antitrust lawyer who shared a brief history of how antitrust started as a tool for governments to stop the consolidation of corporate power, and over time has morphed to focus on issues of competition and consumer protection — which has allowed monopolies to thrive.

Michelle discusses the details and her thinking on the ongoing cases against Google, and more generally on how monopolies are basically like a big octopus arm-wrestling itself.

Further reading:

Sign up to the Computer Says Maybe newsletter to get invites to our events and receive other juicy resources straight to your inbox


Michelle is a competition lawyer and co-founder of the Balanced Economy Project, Europe’s first anti-monopoly organisation. She is author of Competition is Killing Us: How Big Business is Harming Our Society and Planet - and What to Do About It (Penguin, 2020), a Financial Times Best Economics Book of the Year. She is a Senior Policy Fellow at the University College London Centre for Law, Economics and Society. She is a Senior Fellow working on Monopoly and Corporate Governance at the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO).

Episoder(108)

The Elephant in the Algorithm: Live from ZEG Fest in Tbilisi

The Elephant in the Algorithm: Live from ZEG Fest in Tbilisi

Smart people focused on technology politics issues get it. We trade high level helpful concepts like surveillance capitalism, automated inequality, and enshittification. And even as some of these idea...

27 Jun 202546min

Is Digitisation Killing Democracy? w/ Marietje Schaake

Is Digitisation Killing Democracy? w/ Marietje Schaake

There has been an intentional and systematic narrative push that tells governments they are not good enough to provide their own public infrastructure or regulate tech companies that provide it for th...

20 Jun 202537min

AI in Gaza: Live from Mexico City

AI in Gaza: Live from Mexico City

This episode contains some descriptions of torture methods, automated human targeting by machines, and psychological warfare throughoutLast week Alix hosted a live show in Mexico City right after REAL...

13 Jun 20251h

Logging Off w/ Adele Walton

Logging Off w/ Adele Walton

Adele Walton’s new book *Logging Off: The Human Cost of our Digital World* is out NOW — for this week’s episode Alix sat down with her to discuss the book, and what pushed her to write it.Adele shares...

6 Jun 202543min

Short: Sam Altman’s World w/ Billy Perrigo

Short: Sam Altman’s World w/ Billy Perrigo

Sam Altman is doing another big infrastructure push with World (previously Worldcoin) — the universal human verification system.We had journalist Billy Perrigo on to chat what’s what with World. Is Sa...

4 Jun 202520min

The Collective Intelligence Project w/ Divya Siddarth and Zarinah Agnew

The Collective Intelligence Project w/ Divya Siddarth and Zarinah Agnew

Most of the time we interview people who say No to AI. In this interview, Georgia and Alix talk to two people who look at AI and ask How and For What. And lots of other questions too.Divya Siddarth an...

30 Mai 202554min

Net0++: Data Center Sprawl | NEW Research from The Maybe

Net0++: Data Center Sprawl | NEW Research from The Maybe

We’re excited to finally share our report on data center expansion and resistance around the world. It’s been a labor of love, but also showcases the amazing work of many organisations, activists, and...

23 Mai 202554min

Net 0++: AI Thirst in a Water-Scarce World w/ Julie McCarthy

Net 0++: AI Thirst in a Water-Scarce World w/ Julie McCarthy

Last year, Elon Musk’s xAI built a data centre in Memphis in 19 days — and the local government only found out about it on the 20th day. How?Julie McCarthy and her team at NatureFinance have just rele...

16 Mai 202553min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
konspirasjonspodden
aftenpodden-usa
popradet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
min-barneoppdragelse
grenselos
wolfgang-wee-uncut
synnve-og-vanessa
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-dannet-uten-piano
fladseth
alt-fortalt
198-land-med-einar-trnquist
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem