??? Is the US looking to break up Google? | ?????? A Ukrainian national is to blame for the Nord Stream sabotage

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Market Watch

• Indian benchmark indices ended the day in the green with the Sensex up 149.85 points at 79,105.88, and the Nifty up 4.75 points at 24,143.75.
• Among sectoral indices, Nifty IT gained the most, while Nifty Metal shed the most.

Is the US looking to break up Google?

The US Department of Justice is planning a rare antitrust action against Google, which could result in the tech giant being broken up.?The DOJ is contemplating breaking up Google following a court ruling that found the company had monopolized the online search market.

The details: Potential divestments include the Android operating system and Chrome browser, which are critical to Google's market dominance.

• Another potential action includes forcing Google to sell its AdWords platform, a major revenue source, generating about two-thirds of its revenue.
• Alternatively, the DOJ may also mandate Google to share more data with competitors, such as Microsoft's Bing and DuckDuckGo, to level the playing field.
• Exclusive contracts that make Google the default search engine on devices, a significant part of the DOJ's case, might be banned to restore competition.

First, it is not certain that this is the course of action that the DOJ would take. It is merely one of the options being considered.

• However, this is not unheard of. In the 1998 case of United States v. Microsoft Corp , the US DOJ accused Microsoft of maintaining a monopoly in the PC operating systems market and engaging in anti-competitive practices by bundling its Internet Explorer web browser with Windows OS.
• In 2000, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft had indeed violated antitrust laws (Sec 2 of the Sherman Act) and ordered the company to be broken up into two separate entities: one to handle the Windows operating system and another to manage other software components.
• However, Microsoft appealed the decision, and in 2001, a federal appeals court overturned the breakup order, while still upholding the finding that Microsoft had abused its monopoly power.
• Ultimately, the DOJ decided to settle with Microsoft, requiring Microsoft to share its APIs with third-party companies and imposing other restrictions to prevent anti-competitive practices, but it did not require the company to be split into separate entities.

What is the Google case? The verdict against Google was delivered by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta who found that Google violated U.S. antitrust laws by maintaining an illegal monopoly in the search and advertising markets.

• Specifically, Judge Mehta determined that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.
• The case focused on these issues: Google used its monopoly power to charge supra-competitive prices for general search text ads, thereby earning monopoly profits; Google signed exclusive distribution agreements with companies like Apple and Samsung, ensuring that Google's search engine was the default on their devices.

Clip du jour

Shots fired: Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt saying WFH is the reason Google is losing to OpenAI.

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It wasn’t the Russians? Germany issues arrest warrant against Ukrainian national

German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national in connection with the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines .

Wait, what’s Nord Stream? Nord Streams 1 and 2 comprise 2 pipelines each. Nord Stream 1 (operational from 2011) provided Germany and much of Europe with cheap natural gas from Russia for over 10 years. Nord Stream 2 was due to begin operations last year.

• Russia built the pipelines as it “bypassed any need to transit Ukraine” for gas supplies to Europe. It also worked in favour of the Germans who got direct access to cheap Russian gas and were also able to export this to other European nations.

• The company Nord Stream AG which operates the pipeline is owned by Russia’s state-run Gazprom (51%) and four European energy firms (collectively 49%) that had the right to control downstream sales to European distributors.
• The pipelines, which were essential to Russia’s gas revenues, and to Europe’s energy needs were destroyed in September 2022.

The investigations: Russia was initially cited as the likely perpetrator of the Nord Stream attack. However, no one explained why Russia would destroy the biggest leverage it had over Europe amid the Ukraine war.

• Later, German authorities said they found no evidence of Russian involvement in the attack and that they were “open to theories” that a Western nation may have carried out the attack .

• The German investigation revealed that Volodymyr Z. and accomplices used a yacht to reach the pipeline location, where two suspects deployed underwater to plant explosives.
• Poland did not honor the European arrest warrant within the required 60 days, leading to speculations about tacit approval of the attack.

Yes, but: No direct links between the suspects and the Ukrainian government have been found, while the other suspects deny involvement.

Why this matters: Ukraine has blamed Russia multiple times for infrastructure damage in the country.

• Russia had always maintained that Ukraine was involved in the Nordstream sabotage.?
• Earlier, a senior Ukrainian military officer Roman Chervinsky was named as the coordinator of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage operation, as reported by?The Washington Post . Previous reports also?linked the US and other Western nations to being involved in the sabotage.

ICYMI

• ?? More disturbing details have emerged regarding the brutal, fatal assault on a doctor in Kolkata.
• ?? The verdict on Vinesh Phogat's appeal regarding her disqualification from the Women's 50kg final at the Paris Olympics has been delayed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) again.
• ?? Thailand's Constitutional Court has removed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office .
• ?? Security agencies have heightened alerts and intensified measures in Delhi and Punjab following intelligence reports of a potential fidayeen attack targeting Independence Day celebrations.
• ?? In a significant security breach, close to 4,000 lights installed on Ayodhya's Bhakti Path and Ram Path have been reported stolen .
• ?? Cognizant's recent off-campus placement drive offering Rs.2.5 lakh per annum (LPA) to fresh graduates has triggered widespread social media backlash.
• ?? A new AI tool that allows individuals to impersonate others during video calls using just a single photograph and free software enabling real-time face swapping on webcams has raised significant concerns about potential misuse.