DeSantis Privately Called for Google to Be ‘Broken Up.’In previously unreported comments made in 2021, DeSantis said technology companies like Google “should be broken up” by the U.S. government.
DeSantis, widely considered a presidential hopeful, made the remarks at an invite-only retreat for the Teneo Network, a “private and confidential” group for elite conservatives. ProPublica and Documented obtained video of the event.
“They’re just too big, they have too much power,” DeSantis said. “I think they’re exercising a more negative influence on our society than the trusts that got broken up at the early 20th century.” He added that large tech companies “are ruining our country. They’re a very negative influence. And so I think you need to be strong about it.”
Previously: Hotel Googlefornia.
Even if you don’t use Google, the Menlo Park data giant still has you and some of your most deeply personal information deep in its servers. Gizmodo’s Kashmir Hill took on a “monumental challenge,” according to the latest from Forbes, of not merely giving up Google’s many services, but actively blocking all communication with every single one of Google’s services on all her devices.
In other words, Hill didn’t just stop using Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, Waze, etc., she got “the help of a Motorola engineer who designed a custom VPN (virtual private network) that restricted all of her devices — laptops, phones, smart speakers, everything — from talking to Google servers.”
The result? It pretty much broke her access to the internet.
I’m not generally a fan of antitrust. But when a consumer must remain a profit center for Google or give up anything internet-connected, there’s a clear market failure.