Trump's attempting to overtake your Google searches with latest proposal: report
President Donald Trump is attempting to control your Google search results, according to a Newsweek column written by the founder and CEO of Chamber of Progress, Adam Kovacevich.
Trump’s move could be considered taking advantage of an antitrust lawsuit against the firm, which started during the Biden administration.
In 2024, Judge Amit Mehta ruled against Google, claiming the company “monopolized key digital advertising technologies,” meaning they held a monopoly on internet search engines. This year, the case has reached the “remedies stage.”
Kovacevich claims Trump’s DOJ is not making the process about competition but instead, “as a vehicle to punish Google for exercising its free speech rights.”
At the start of the remedies trial, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters, “The case was necessary because Google has deplatformed conservative speech and has put its thumb on the scale politically for years."
Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater has also called Google a threat to "our freedom of speech, our freedom of thought."
“Never mind that the actual case says nothing about speech or censorship,” Kovacevich remarked, “To Trump's administration, this is about control, not market share. And they're pulling every lever they can to make sure this case ends the way Trump wants.”
Kovacevich believes the latest remedies being proposed “would put Trump appointees directly under the hood of Google's search engine for the next three to six years.”
The remedies would let Trump “hand-pick a five-person ‘technical committee’ with broad control over Google's business and products for a decade.”
“Imagine Googling 'Donald Trump' and seeing only glowing coverage,” the CEO said, “If that sounds far-fetched, it shouldn't.”
He warned, “We've already seen what Trump does with power: he punishes critics, installs loyalists, and bends once-independent institutions to his will.”
Kovacevich added, “Now, the president stands to gain unprecedented influence over the world's most powerful information tool.”