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Tech News Weekly 383: Google Loses DoJ Ad Tech Case
01:02:30
OpenAI, Zuckerberg, o3 & o4-mini
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- [00:00]
Micah Sargent
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Dan Morin of Six Colors is here. We kick off the show by talking about the DOJ winning in its case against Google and its ad tech. Then OpenAI rumored to be building a social network. After that, Mark Zuckerberg just couldn't make it happen with the FTC and its own meta antitrust case. Before we round things out about ChatGPT being used for reverse location search, it's geoguessing. All of that coming up on Tech News Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you Trust. This is TWiT. This is Tech News Weekly episode 383 with Dan Morin and me, Micah Sargent. Recorded Thursday, April 17, 2025. Google loses DOJ adtech case hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news. I am your host Micah Sargent and today I am joined by a special guest co host. It is Dan Morin of Six Colors and Clockwise and other podcasts and activities. Hello Dan.
- [01:22]
Dan Morin
Yes, I do many activities, Micah, thank you for remembering all the things I do.
- [01:27]
Micah Sargent
It's a long list.
- [01:28]
Dan Morin
Actively, actively.
- [01:32]
Micah Sargent
It is good to have you here on the show. For people who are tuning in for the first time, we typically have the start of the show where we have our stories of the week and then throughout the show we'll have on some guests who join us to talk about the things they're writing about or that they are covering or have created this week. It is a story of the week episode, I'm pleased to say. Dan will be joining us for the whole episode. So without further ado, let's kick things off Dan, with your story of the week.
- [02:07]
Dan Morin
Well, this was kind of late breaking I think as we started putting this together. The U.S. department of justice has won its antitrust case against Google. This is specifically. Now just to clarify, there are a couple different things. They recently also had a loss over search and they're having a monopoly in search. This is about advertising and Google's role in the advertising market. So what they basically established was that Google has been anti competitive in the way that it's established and maintain its monopoly power as a publisher for ads and in creating ad exchange markets. And basically the way they tie those things together both technologically and contractually lets it hold on to that monopoly power in those markets. So it's also important to understand like again, this is technical, this is legal stuff. Neither Micah nor I are lawyers. Last I checked, not lawyer. Right. If you are, you have to tell me that's the law, I think. I don't know because I'm not a.
- [03:08]
Micah Sargent
Lawyer, you're not a lawyer, so maybe I don't have to tell you, but this.
- [03:12]
Dan Morin
So one thing is not included here is that they were dismissed the charges that Google operated monopoly in ad networks. Yeah, so this is slicing a little bit fine here. But and of course Google has said they're going to be appealing this decision, unsurprisingly. We'll see where that goes. But specifically Google says that the, the acquisition of things like DoubleClick, which they famously bought as sort of a big competitor, did not harm competition. And so they argue that people use Google Ad technology because it's the best, right. It's the cheapest, it's the most effective, etc. You could also argue that's the case because there's not a lot of competition. Again, so what does this mean I guess is the question. Well, we don't, I think yet have a, you know, sort of what the remedy would be here. I'm not sure that that has been made public yet. And of course if Google is appealing, that will be pending anyways. Right. That's not going to happen immediately, but it is significant because these are two back to back cases in which Google has taken a blow over its role in markets where it is a dominant player. Even if it may or may not, you know, think of itself as a monopoly. There's no arguing that it's dominant in search and it's dominant in ads. I mean those are, those are its two biggest markets. So whatever the remedies may be, they are likely to be, if not far reaching then at least impactful in terms of how they, they change Google's business. It's going to have to make some, some changes and adaptations to figure out how it's going to, you know, comply with whatever remedies the court sets down in this case. So that could be you know, presumably a large shift in some of these particular types of markets.
- [05:04]
Micah Sargent
It's so confusing. I mean obviously this is a giant corporation and has done some, you know, some, some questionable things still for the people who are involved in this and who have to figure this out and break this all down, I can't imagine. I mean, because as you point out there's sort of these two areas. The ad network versus the ad.
- [05:33]
Dan Morin
Like publishing.
- [05:34]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, yeah, the publishing. And so when it's almost like with that they're saying we're not going to get you twice. Right. You do both. And it's the part of the problem is that you do do both, but we're going to focus on the one, because if you, you're able to use the company to buy ads and then the company also then serves those ads, it, it's. That's just very. Again, I keep, I know I keep saying this, but it's incredibly complicated. And so I think on both ends of this, I'm very impressed with any, anything that can come. Yeah, it's a lot to pull apart. And that's why I think too go so many things going on right now in the antitrust space, including its search, including, you know, the browser stuff. Like obviously it's, there's, there's much with these big corporations, right.
- [06:31]
Dan Morin
I mean, there's a lot of slicing this thin. Right. We saw under at least the previous US Administration a willingness to take on a lot of these big tech. We're going to talk about another one a little bit later. But you know, Google, we also saw, remember there was a complaint, a DOJ complaint filed against Apple. You might remember that one was also very specific in terms of the behavior and the markets in which it alleged Apple was a monopoly. And I think that's the case here with Google in terms of dividing it up into those different types of markets. Specifically, like the tools used by publishers, like new sites to host ad space, open ad space, right? If you are the New York Times or you are Wired or whatever, and you are like creating, using tools to be like, here's where the ads go on our site and how that dictates this. In some cases, what gets seen or things like that, that's one market, the tool that advertisers use to buy that space, right? If I am somebody making a product and I say I want to advertise in the New York Times or I want to advertise, I'm wired, you have to use Google's tools in order to buy that, you know, those ad spaces and the software facilitating those transactions. That's largely, by the way, a summary, very nice summary given by the New York Times and what they were talking about here specifically is those first, the first one where it's like, you know, the advertising space that's available and the software system that facilitates it, but not necessarily the case where I'm the person with the product looking to buy ads, which I think makes sense because, you know, you're looking to buy ads from Google. So like, you're kind of going into that already being like, all right, I'm going to buy ads from Google. They don't have a monopoly over selling you the ad space that they're providing. But the fact that they do control. If you're a publisher, right, if you're a New York Times or you're Wired or you're whoever and you're looking at who do we want to buy from and partner with to have ads on our site, there really wasn't an alternative. Right? Like that's where the monopoly comes in. If you are publishing a website and you are a publisher and you're like, we got to sell ads to make money and to generate revenue for our publication, you didn't really have a lot of alternatives. You had Google. And so that is, you know, a pretty good argument in many of those cases to say, look, there is a, there is a monopoly in that market because you, you really couldn't choose anything else. And so then Google gets to dictate things like ad rates and terms and where things go and the behavior of ads, all of those things. Let it exercise a lot of power in that area. And if the answer is if you are the publisher and you're like, we don't like the way that's being done, then your alternative is not go to another vendor necessarily, but not have ads.
- [09:19]
Micah Sargent
Which is, yeah, yeah, that's not an option for, for everyone, for anyone like that. That's part of the sort of agreement with the business is right. You are going to tell people about it. And so, yeah, like there have been times where I have felt of two minds perhaps about the arguments being made. And then there are times where it's kind of like, I get it, I understand where this is coming from and this feels like one of those times. It's, I think in part though, it's a bit of a culture shift, a legal, cultural shift, if you will, where there was a time that big tech was getting off the ground in a big way and you did just kind of, you got this and you got that and you built this and you. And it's going, oh, look at this cool stuff we're able to do. And that was enough to kind of obfuscate and not worry about being anti competitive. But now it seems like the focus is there and we're go, we're kind of reconciling as we're catching up.
- [10:38]
Dan Morin
It was the nascent era, right, where it's like fast and I mean the same way that like, you know, when they first started building cars in the early 20th century, they probably weren't doing a lot of crash testing. But you know, they are Getting the. The whole industry running. And then it's only probably later on, you're like, maybe we should think about making these safer. Right. Like, maybe we should consider whether or not people might die when we crash our cars into one another. And, you know, I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying it is oftentimes, I think this is true overall across the board, not just in technology, but oftentimes the regulations and the courts move slower. Right. Like, things can happen much faster because court, by nature, the law is a deliberative, slow thing that needs to examine how things are and the way things are done and then concoct a strong argument based on sort of like the understanding of these things. And by necessity, that is slower than just being one. Being like, we're out here building stuff with code or we're building cars and we're driving them on the streets. Right. Like, it just doesn't. It takes a while for it to catch up in that as well as so many other things.
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Micah Sargent
Yeah, exactly. Including driving on the street without people in those cars, which is a new thing that, you know, is sort of. We're still catching up to.
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Dan Morin
Yeah, exactly.
- [11:59]
Micah Sargent
Driving an AI system to do things that it shouldn't be doing. I don't know. It's all. It's all driving. Yeah, we, of course, will, as is always the case when it comes to the appeals process, this is going to be years long, likely, and involves so many different twists and turns. And, you know, Google is sort of juggling other antitrust cases at the same time, so we'll have to see how this shapes.
- [12:34]
Dan Morin
That's happening soon, too. Just as a footnote, the. I believe Monday, the. The previous case over search will now have a hearing about essentially what the Justice Department is going to do or ask for in terms of remedies in that case, which could include breaking up, you know, Google, which may play into this case as well. So. Well, you know, all those things are going intertwine a lot over the next months and years, and we'll see what happens.
- [13:01]
Micah Sargent
All right, let us take a quick break so I can tell you about our first sponsor. Thank you, Dan Morin, for joining me for this week's episode. This episode is brought to you by Threat Locker Ransomware. It's harming businesses worldwide through phishing, emails, infected downloads, malicious websites, and RDP exploits. You don't want to be the next victim. ThreatLocker's Zero Trust Platform takes a proactive determination, deny by default approach that blocks every unauthorized action, protecting you from both known and unknown threats. Trusted by global enterprises like JetBlue and Port of Vancouver, ThreatLocker shields you from zero day exploits and supply chain attacks while providing complete audit trails for compliance. ThreatLocker's innovative ring fencing technology isolates critical applications from weaponization, stopping ransomware and limiting that lateral movement within your network. ThreatLocker works across all industries industries, supports Mac environments, provides 24.7us based support, and enables comprehensive visibility and control. Mark Tolson, IT director for the city of Champaign, Illinois, says Threat Locker provides that extra key to block anomalies that nothing else can do. If bad actors got in and tried to execute something, I take comfort in knowing Threat Locker will stop that. So stop worrying about cyber threats. Get unprecedented protection quickly, easily and cost effectively. With ThreatLocker, you can visit threatlocker.com twits to get a free 30 day trial and learn more about how ThreatLocker can help mitigate unknown threats and ensure compliance. That's threatlocker.com twit and we thank ThreatLocker for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. Already back from the break and now it's time to talk about social Networks. What? Yes, OpenAI, of course, is well known for its ChatGPT chatbot is exploring what it might consider its next big leap. And it's not about language models, it's actually about building its own social network. So what exactly is driving this pivot? Is it a pivot? And what does it say about the future of tech's biggest players? Well, we know that according to reports, Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, is working on the idea of a social network is in fact prototyping a social network that is built around AI. We hear that ChatGPT's image generation is a big part of this social network. And CEO Sam Altman is reaching out to folks and asking for feedback. You know, this is sort of an invite only kind of a deal where it's not, it's not even in beta or anything like that. It's like, hey friend, what do you think of this? You know, it's interesting because at the same time this is going on, we have two other big names in similar spaces that are in headlines a lot. We have Elon Musk and we have Mark Zuckerberg, and each of them owns a social media network. And it just so happens that Sam Altman is also one of those names that is also in the headlines a lot and does not currently own a social media network. It would appear that OpenAI is kind of moving from just focusing on AI tech to diversify. But I wonder if there's something else going on here I wanted to hear though, first. Dan. Yeah, you know, we, we talked about this a little bit yesterday on our show clockwise and got a little bit of insight into what people were thinking about it. But with us, this being a little bit more roomy. You want to tell me what you're thinking about OpenAI's social media network?
- [17:16]
Dan Morin
I think it's worth taking a step back here and asking yourself, why do they want to do this? Why does OpenAI, a company that makes AI chatbots and other AI based technology, want a social media network? And I'm going to give you a hint. It's not because social media is a super profitable, super great business to be in in our year 2025. It's because it is still an AI company at the base and what it wants is data. If you're gonna spend your time on social media, that is a lot of free data. I mean, I say this too. We were just talking about Google and advertising, right? And this was always my argument. People who are like, yeah, Gmail's great, it's free. It's like, yeah, it is free. Think about why that is.
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Micah Sargent
Why?
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Dan Morin
Think about, think about any of the products that Google gives away for free and why they are doing it. They are not altruistic. Same goes for OpenAI, right? They are not in the business of, hey, we're just, we're just here making cool stuff for the world. We don't really care about money. Sam Altman is a billionaire. He clearly cares about money. So when you sort of start that, you know, take that as your starting point and saying the reason they want this is access to more data, then you know, that may already, you know, affect your decision as somebody who takes part in social media to be like, how interested are you in this thing? I, I think that there's some real questions also of like starting a social media app in this day and age. Right? It is a very, it's a very different market than it was a decade ago in part because it is very established now in a way it was not a decade ago.
- [18:56]
Micah Sargent
Right.
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Dan Morin
We have big players and it's very hard to come into market like that and, and challenge those players. Even if you are a company as sort of front of mind as open AI, you know, the fact that you're gonna what, unseat Instagram or TikTok or X is, it's a lot, it's a lot to, it's a Lot to promise and a lot to aim for. And it's also a venture that in and of itself tends to be kind of a, a loss leader. Right. It tends to not be a big money maker because you're not charging people directly for it. Usually you're trying to make some money off the back end, whether it's by selling advertising or in this case by using your training data and kind of writing that off by saying, well, we're really improving our main product by using this. So I have a hard time thinking that this will actually be successful. But it is possible certainly. I mean like in terms of the way they've talked about, hey, like maybe AI will help people post better things or something. And it's like, I don't know that that's a, that's a good argument. And you know, people talk about Grok, which is, you know, X's AI thing that's been integrated with now and all of that. And this is a competitor to that in some ways. Yeah, I, I think this is, is very early days. Obviously I would be surprised if it actually even makes it ever to a real product.
- [20:18]
Micah Sargent
Yeah.
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Dan Morin
But it's certainly not something that I think a lot of people are like, oh yeah, let me go sign up for that.
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Micah Sargent
Yeah, I, so it's interesting. I have had on the show before, I've talked about, I think it was with Amanda Silberling on two occasions, some social media or social networking apps that were AI driven. One where you create an AI character and that AI character posts and then other people have their own AI avatars and those posts and you're not creating, you're not creating a version of yourself, you're literally creating some other being. So you can, you have some choices about, oh, you know, what's their personality like, what's this, what's that? And then you get to check on what they're doing and how. It's sort of Tamagotchi esque but a little bit more, more cognitive abilities, I guess. And you, there was another one where you are a real person, but the site, everybody else, who you are following and who is following you is just AI. So you basically have your own bespoke social media network where you are posting and it's real, but everybody else who's responding to you is AI. And in both of those cases there's, you see like a little activity jump at the beginning as people try it out and then you see it kind of fall off.
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Dan Morin
Right.
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Micah Sargent
And it's, I think the novelty of that wears off if, if we start though to see the introduction of these AI bots in a more because there are currently AI bots where if I were to post something and say, man, I wish I had a shirt of this, you're going to get five different bots responding to be like get it on redbubble now. But not that kind of bot, but one that is more realistic, so to speak. If we start to have this happening more regularly, I'm kind of curious if people will get used to it and in that way kind of just expect that that's going to be the case. Interestingly though, I wanted to mention just yesterday there was a report about Meta blocking Apple Intelligence on its various apps in Yes, I did see this. Yeah, especially the writing tools. So we don't really know what's going on other than if you tap on something and you try to use the Apple Intelligence features like the writing tools, the option is not available, doesn't let users create and share genmoji. Meta has also removed the ability to add keyboard stickers and memoji to Instagram stories. Why that's the case, don't know, but I find it fascinating from the perspective of each of these companies. There's sort of a convergence going on right now because at one point we had the social media networks working to add AI, but now we're seeing the AI companies working to add social media and there's this sort of overlap and convergence that's taking place. Even if we look at the goal behind it and yeah, we look at the fact that so much of this is just about getting not just more data that's real overall, but also real time data. I think that's the big thing. What's the zeitgeist? What is, you know, the latest meme? If I want a relevant tool, it needs to have real time information. And so you've got Meta working on an AI assistant app that's based on your feed and your interactions. You've got X merging with xai. Of course we know that it trains on real time user content. We've got Google, who has its own virtual assistant that uses different things including YouTube videos to train and, you know, whatever Android stuff is available. And we've got Apple, which just recently put out its own report about and mind you, with certain privacy stuff in place. But still, if you agree to hand over your data via analytics, it trains on user email, it trains on usage of Genmoji. And again, I want to be clear, it's a little, it's a bit of an over summarization or oversimplification to say that it trains on user email because it goes through all these different processes to make that obfuscated, but essentially it does. And so all of these companies, these big tech companies are using their own analytics platforms to be able to train their versions of generative AI. So, yeah, in some ways I wonder if OpenAI is not a little bit jealous that there's this user base that all of these companies have the, you know, the implication that GROK integrating with X. Yeah, you're going, well, I wish I could do that. Anthropic's probably going, I wish I had user data that exists outside of just the prompts that I'm giving. And then in many ways, people are very sensitive to their prompts being used to train. So there's lots of like toggling that kind of thing off. So I'm not surprised to hear about this. And. But the other thing that I'll mention is just we see the main big tech companies all trying to be that Omni app, that Omni service.
- [26:30]
Dan Morin
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely the case for X. You know, which I think Elon Musk has said is kind of his goal long term is to have it to be everything. And even recently he had this little financial shell game where he sold X to his XAI company, which was a little confusing and weird, but, you know, again, goes to the same idea. And the other thing that's worth noting about this is obviously a bunch of these AI companies are in litigation and you know, argument over using data that they may not have permission to. Whereas, you know, if you sign up for a social media network that's designed to feed data to an AI, you can bet that's going to be part of those terms that you don't read right as you scroll through and say, oh, yeah, yeah, just sign me up. I agree. You've probably just given things consent to it to train all your posts and your photos and everything to be used to train AI. So that's the way it goes.
- [27:23]
Micah Sargent
That's the way the AI cookie crumbles. All right, it is time to take another break before we come back with, well, more antitrust in just a moment, but first let me tell you about Melissa, who is bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Melissa is the trusted data quality expert. Since 1985, with Melissa's launch of the Melissa address validation app and the Shopify App Store, Shopify plus merchants now have access to a critical data quality tool directly from the address expert and I'm so happy that that's the case because I have had my bacon saved by this address validation in the past. And it said you typed something in wrong and I said no, it did it. Oh yes I did. And so I got my product when I was expecting Key features of the Melissa Address Validation app include real time address validation so customers are immediately notified like I was if the address they enter contains errors or needs correction, preventing shipping delays and reducing return rates. Global Reach the app validates addresses in more than 240 countries and territories, so it's standardized according to local postal regulations. Enhanced Address Correction Even if Google Auto Suggestion is enabled, Melissa's app can correct and standardize addresses, adding missing components such as postal codes and ensuring compliance with local formatting rules. And also CASS and SERP Certification the address engine is certified by USPS and Canada Post offering reliable validation for North American addresses. And you can't forget the Smart Alerts. The app provides a warning on the thank you page if there is a potential issue with the shipping address, allowing customers to to update their information before the order is processed. Shopify plus merchants can easily install the Melissa address validation app to improve customer satisfaction and avoid the costs associated with returns and redeliveries. With Melissa, you get secure encryption for all file transfers and an information security ecosystem built on the ISO 27001 framework, adherence to GDPR policies and SoC2 compliance. Get started today with 1000 records cleaned for free at melissa.com TWiT that's melissa.com TWiT and we thank Melissa for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, we are back from the break, joined by east coast bureau chief of Six Colors, Dan Morin. And it is time to talk more antitrust. Antitrust. Antitrust.
- [30:05]
Dan Morin
Antitrust is my mom. Yeah, mom's sister, you know.
- [30:10]
Micah Sargent
Mark Zuckerberg thought his political alliances and a lowball offer could help Meta escape a historic antitrust trial. Instead, the FTC called his bluff and now he's back in court testifying about the very acquisitions that built Meta's empire. Of course, we know Meta, formerly Facebook, has been embroiled in a trial over the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, where the FTC says, Look, you've acquired two companies that make this space very difficult to thrive in if you are not one of these companies. It was originally filed back in 2020, so it's been going on for a while. It was thrown out and then it was brought back into reality under Lina Khan's leadership. Now here's the interest. Well, I guess a lot of this is interesting, but here's the, the, here are the details. According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta offered to settle this case just $450 million. And maybe that sounds like a lot of money to you or to, but here's the deal. The FTC said, you are going to be paying 30 billion with a B. Dollars. $30 billion. And Meta said, well, what if we just gave you 450 million of, you know, what if we just did that? Then we heard that Zuckerberg was really cozying up to our current president leading up to, and then following the election of our current president, in the hopes that being friends with the president would lead to some kind of ability to maybe let that $450 million be enough and not have to pay $30 billion. As things started to get a little rocky and it was becoming clear that the case was going to go through anyway, Meta said, okay, look, we get it, right? We've tried these different things. We've gone to the dinners, we've tried to give you less than half of $1 billion. So what if, what if, what if we just give you a billion? Is that enough? No, the FTC said, sorry, no, that's not enough. In fact, fine, 30 billion, fine, okay, that's a lot, right? We want at least $18 billion and we want firm restrictions in place. Well, that didn't go through either. So now they're in the trial. And as far as we can tell, the Trump administration has ultimately backed the FTC's position as it stands. And so all of that work and lobbying has not been, has not led to, to the outcome I think that Meta would want. And this goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the previous antitrust conversation where the culture was once one of you buy what you want, you get in trouble for it and then you just settle and then you move on. And it's shifting from acquire, get in trouble, settle to companies actually having to answer for the decisions and acquisitions that they're making. It's interesting though, because, Dan, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't acquisitions have to be approved?
- [34:09]
Dan Morin
Yes, absolutely. That is definitely a thing.
- [34:13]
Micah Sargent
Yeah. And so it was approved and now they're get. The company's getting in trouble for it. Look, I'm not to be clear, I think that again, not a lawyer, but it's, it's absolutely an argument that there, there's a lot of anti competitive behavior involved in this and I'm not standing up for Meta itself. But it is odd that you have to have an acquisition approved and then yet you can still get in trouble for it. It's like me saying, mom, can I have a cookie? And mom saying, yeah. And then later mom going, you ate that cookie, you're grounded. What? That's just not the agreement I knew.
- [35:03]
Dan Morin
But you know, at the same time it's also like can I have a cookie? And then what if you ate all the cookies?
- [35:07]
Micah Sargent
That's true.
- [35:08]
Dan Morin
Probably get in trouble for that. You.
- [35:10]
Micah Sargent
I would.
- [35:11]
Dan Morin
It's a matter of degrees too, right? I mean, I think you're right to a certain extent. Let's also remember that these, these deals are overseen by government departments that change over time, both in terms of the administration they represent as well as the people themselves who are at these organizations. So what, what one incarnation of the FTC might sign off on a decade prior, ten years later you might look at it and think, well maybe that was a bad choice. And you know, behavior is also part of it. Right. Like what they do with it after they've acquired it may influence that. Because if they tend to, if they continue having. It's not just the act of buying it, that is part of the anti competitive pattern. Right. What you then do to discourage competition in other ways or to solidify your hold on it or to, to lock down or remove things from Instagram. Right. That you might have had previously. That it's like, well, we don't want other people to have access to our stuff now. So, you know, it is, it is a nuanced issue, I think as we discussed previously with these courts kinds of court cases. But you're right that it, they, they got approval to do this at the time. So that does feel, you know, like, well, there's some degree of blessing happening there. Why is this changed? And the answer is. Well, some of it's. The world has changed. Right?
- [36:31]
Micah Sargent
Yes. I think if I was a company that was thinking about making an acquisition, I would just do my best to avoid it if sure at any time I could end up getting in trouble for it at the same time. Again, you are absolutely right in that it's at the time. Right. The approval for this specific thing may have made sense and it was, you know, not as anti competitive and of course the different people that were in charge, but as you point out, the behavior that follows that to scoop up WhatsApp and Instagram and to, to be as big as the Facebook part of meta is, is one aspect of that. Another aspect of that is as FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said Metta's power was, quote, on full display in 2020, talking about the company's role in the information during. The information that was spread during elections.
- [37:44]
Dan Morin
Right.
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Micah Sargent
And so there was that concern as well. Plus, Instagram has been in the limelight for. For youth health, and Instagram has been in the limelight for algorithmic stuff, algorithmic concerns. I mean, we've also seen Instagram working to compete more directly with TikTok. So there are all of these little bits and pieces that lead up to making it more likely that you're going to get in trouble. But the buy lobby, settle aspect of the way things once were has changed. It's not enough, it seems, to just lobby your way through. And that, I have to tell you, that surprises me a little bit in the current administration, where one thought one could kiss the ring, as it were, and that that would be enough to mean that Zuck got out of having to go testify and potentially spend a lot of money. And that hasn't happened.
- [39:08]
Dan Morin
Right.
- [39:09]
Micah Sargent
Does that surprise you or.
- [39:11]
Dan Morin
A little bit, yeah. I mean, because, I mean, I don't want to delve too deeply into politics, though. Everything is politics now.
- [39:19]
Micah Sargent
Everything is.
- [39:20]
Dan Morin
But certainly this administration has not seemed afraid of currying some quid pro quo. What's interesting about this particular case is that, as you noted, it dates back to 2020, the very first incarnation of this, that there was a attempt from the FTC to SUE Facebook In December 2020, which is the end of the first Trump administration. That lawsuit was thrown out, and then the FTC refiled a more detailed case in late 2021, which is the one that we're now seeing work its way through. So there. And we know that there were indications at the time that part of what spurred that initial wave of, you know, attempts to sue Facebook was some degree of feeling aggrieved on the part of the. Both that administration and in more generally, this idea of sort of censorship, quote, unquote, put that in quotes for reasons of right wing, you know, viewpoints and things like that. And that has certainly come up a lot in sort of, you know, congressional hearings and the likes. So even with the currying of favor from Zuckerberg to the Trump administration, it does certainly seem as though maybe there's still some latent antagonism or latent, you know, feelings of being treated poorly, that they're going to keep going. But it does. Yeah, it does surprise me. We've seen other cases that essentially were being prosecuted under the previous administration that have just been abandoned or thrown out because the current administration, it does not behoove them. Or so they, they believe.
- [41:05]
Micah Sargent
Right?
- [41:06]
Dan Morin
And so maybe part of this is this was too far along, or maybe part of it is just that the current administration likes the fact that that gives them leverage over a company as big as Meta. I mean, that is not a thing you can discount either. That having them on trial very publicly and with big stakes does give them a lever to press in terms of getting what they want out of that company.
- [41:32]
Micah Sargent
Big well done steaks, yum yum with ketchup. All right, let us take a quick break before we come back with the final story of the week. Again, this, before we go to that break, this is always a matter of where will it end up. And so we can't know that yet because there's always the process and the back and forth. We've had some great antitrust journalists on antitrust journalists on the show in the past, and I plan to have them on again in the future to talk about where things do end up. All right, let's take that break so I can tell you about Delete Me, who is bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. If you've ever wondered how much of your personal data is on the Internet for anyone to see, well, let me tell you, it's probably more than you think. Your name, your contact info, your Social Security number, your home address, even information about your family members, it's all being compiled by data brokers and sold online. Anyone on the web can buy your private details. This can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, doxing and harassment. But you can protect your privacy with Delete Me. You know, I, of course am a person who exists publicly and being in, in some level of, of the public and out there, I do have to think about, you know, my online security. Well, that's, that means that if I'm thinking about my online security, it's likely that my personal information is out there for people to find. Or at least it would be. But that's why I recommend and use Delete Me. Delete Me is a subscription service that removes your personal info from hundreds of data brokers. You can sign up and provide Deleteme with exactly what information you want deleted and its experts take it from there. DeleteMe sends your regular personalized privacy reports showing what info they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And DeleteMe isn't just a one time service. Deleteme is always working for you, constantly monitoring and removing the personal information. You don't want on the Internet. You know, I went online to Deleteme and set things up and I immediately you say, this is who I am. These are the things that you need to know about me. They get to work. Suddenly I'm seeing the stuff that's been online and I'm going, what in the world? Why is that out there? Having been public and sort of having an online presence since 2011, 2012, I have in the past had individuals that were creepy reaching out to me and finding out information about me and, and I wish at the time I had had a service like this. And it's really nice now to have this service and say, not only am I keeping my information offline as much as possible, but I'm also protecting my family, making sure that they are not linked to me as well. To put it simply, DeleteMe does all the hard work of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites. You can take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com TWiT and use the promo code TWIT at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com TWIT and enter code TWIT at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com TWIT code TWIT. We thank DeleteMe for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, we are back from the break, joined by Dan Moran and we are now talking about a new Trend over in AI land.
- [45:29]
Dan Morin
So OpenAI's favorite theme park.
- [45:33]
Micah Sargent
Yes. None of the roller coasters actually connect.
- [45:37]
Dan Morin
Sometimes you just go and you're in that roller coaster and it just goes. There's no more rails. You just go.
- [45:42]
Micah Sargent
It's so dangerous. Sometimes there are three different rails where it should only be one. It's a nightmare. So over in OpenAI land, OpenAI released announced its newest AI models, O3 and 04 mini. These are reasoning models, meaning that to a certain extent they will take the request that you send them and then come up with a response. But look at the various responses that they could possibly give. I should I keep saying they because it's more than one, but like that it could possibly give and then choose the best response from the possible responses. That is again a simplification of the reasoning aspect of it. But along with being able to reason, it is Also able to use all of the tools that OpenAI provides, the searching, the web tools, and the image integration. And there's a sort of trend going on. And I'm going to keep calling it a trend because of something that Kyle Wiggers of TechCrunch has pointed out in Kyle's article that I'll talk about in a minute. But it essentially has resulted. I don't know if you've ever seen the wonderful and terrifying videos of people doing what's called GEO guessing, but essentially, for anyone who doesn't know, someone will take kind of an obscure photo of themselves or a scene, and they'll send it to one of these people who kind of specializes in GEO guessing. And that person uses clues from the photo. Maybe it's a cup with a logo on it, or it's the way that a tree, where a tree is placed next to a building or a license plate that's just out of frame or is barely in frame, whatever it happens to be, to figure out where that person is. Well, people are taking obscure photos and uploading them to O3 and saying Geo, guess this. And it is coming up with pretty good answers. In fact, in, in the cases that are shared, it is correct in those cases. And this can be as simple as a photo of, of a. Let's see, it was a photo looking out a window and the person seems to be kind of sitting at a table and there's a coast nearby and they correctly guessed that this was a person sitting in a Ritz Carlton in California, Salt Creek beach, and, and talk about all of the different information regarding that. Now some people might go, wait, maybe the AI is just looking at the EXIF data. No, that is not the case. The folks are stripping out the EXIF data before they upload it and it is able to use all the different tools to do this. Now here's the part where I want to make something clear. We talk about this being a trend. It's not necessarily the fact that it's O3 is so much better at doing this, so much so that it is just people thought about doing it with this and then it caught on because TechCrunch ran some tests using the current GPT4O, the model that has been around now for a while that lets you be able to use photos and do the, you know, image reasoning capabilities, or excuse me, without image reasoning capabilities, and it was still able to arrive at the answer in many of the cases. And sometimes it did it faster than O3 was able to do, which has a Lot more going on. The reasoning models take longer because again then it's looking at results every time and then kind of reasoning down what's the best answer from there. So stalkers may have been able to use this kind of a thing for a while and it just happened to catch on with this latest model because people are going, oh, now it can reason with images, maybe it's able to do something with that. I wanted to ask Dan, have you heard about geoguessing and kind of what are your thoughts on. On this as it starts to become apparent that we do have a sort of multi tool in our pocket for so many different things that are sometimes a little bit scary.
- [50:32]
Dan Morin
Yeah, I'm familiar with geoguessr. I haven't spent a lot of time with it, but I, I've checked it out in the past, you know, this kind of thing. I think there's also some degree of this where this kind of thing felt like it would used to be purely the province of, of humans. Right. Like I was looking example of like a taking a picture. Somebody posted it took a picture of a. In a library of some books and it figured out where. And that like seems bananas on the face of it. Like how could you just take a picture of some books and know what library it's in? But the answer was because it had the little labels on the side from the collection and they were labeled in such a way that it could decipher what it was. So when you think about things like that, you're like, oh well that's kind of obvious. And this used to be the province of people, right? People. You know, you think of this in like detective novels or right, you know, movies when people, people are trying to track down where something is, where is this picture taken? Or what's that audio in the back of the phone call that lets me figure out where this person is calling from. It's no surprise then that there are tools that can figure this kind of thing out. But it is, it is certainly something that should be sobering to people, right? Because I think it drives home the idea even further that I wouldn't say like don't share anything online, right. Like that's an extremist point of view. You. But I think it reminds you to think very carefully about the things you share online and where and how you share them. Because as they point out in this TechCrunch article, sure, you might send something via Snapchat or a Instagram story that's time limited and maybe even only sent to certain people. But that can be screenshotted and uploaded and shared in other ways, right? Or it can even, you know, what we've used to call the analog hole, which is, you know, take a picture of it with another phone or another device, right? Like it's, it's very hard once that data is out there to ensure that it can't be misused. And so it becomes then an issue of really being selective or willing to be okay with those consequences and realizing, like, look, I'm posting a picture of myself on vacation or something like that. That, and I know that it may be obvious from this heck, I might share with you where this picture was taken. But being aware that certainly obscurity is not necessarily enough to protect information that you want to protect. And in some ways I think that, like I said, in some ways I think this is good because tools like this have been around or less sophisticated methods of doing the same thing have been around. And so we have all gotten very accustomed, I think, to sharing a lot of information about ourselves publicly. And this is a reminder that these tools are only going to get better at sort of tracking down this stuff and that what you think might be a, if not private, then at least a, you know, concealed piece of data may not end up being that private.
- [53:32]
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Micah Sargent
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- [55:44]
Dan Morin
Visit your local T Mobile location or.
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Micah Sargent
Learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to four lines of virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service report in 90 plus days device eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months. Yeah, and ultimately the fact that, you know, for 20 or so bucks a month people have access to this tool where before maybe you did have to hire a PI or something. I just, yeah, you pull out your phone and the person you, the person that's being targeted is suddenly more available because they decided to share a photo of themselves on social media. Anthony Nielsen did a little test in the chat and posted a photo in Mendocino and said can you guess where in the world this is? It responded, this looks like the town of Mendocino, California on the Northern California coast. The image shows wooden buildings, coastal architecture and what appears to be the Mendocino Volunteer Fire Department building on the right side in red and white. And then said that the church like building with a tower on the left is another recognizable landmark often seen in photos of Mendocino. And I can't quite tell does it what what is on the fire department building, Anthony, what is the actual text on that? Because I'm curious. Yeah, okay. Anthony says I can't even read it.
- [57:18]
Dan Morin
Yeah.
- [57:20]
Micah Sargent
And that's interesting too because it's if it's pixelated, it's still able to kind of pull that apart. Right.
- [57:26]
Dan Morin
Well that and that is the thing that is certainly possible in a lot of cases. You'll, you know, it can kind of reconstruct that. It's much better at that than a person is going to be.
- [57:34]
Micah Sargent
Absolutely. Because that is also part of of how it does image generations like from a blurred blobs made into reality of a sort. Yeah. Fascinating, but also terrifying. So it can do that and just be mindful of the fact that it can do that. And yeah, this is the hard part. Right. I don't really have advice to offer other than don't share your photos online, which just seems like, I don't know. That's obvious. It's an obvious thing to say, but it's also kind of a ridiculous thing to have to say. But if that's the only way to avoid stuff like this, then that's the case. The other part of this, before we put a wrap on this episode, is I think about when Apple came out with Airtag and those Airtag devices were little r. Little Bluetooth tracking beacons that can sort of piggyback off of the huge network of iPhones, iPads, Macs that are all over the world. And so it creates like this instant tracking network to find an item that you've lost. Great. However, upon the introduction of it, there was a lot of blowback from people who are advocates for those who are victims of stalking and domestic abuse. And Apple within weeks had a response and updates to its technology to answer the concerns therein and then continued to work to make that better and continued to consult with advocates to make the technology better. While also bearing in mind that up to that point there were many other tracking devices on the. On the markets that arguably had the same concern. Paired with the fact that you could go to Amazon and type in cellular GPS and get dozens of results for little trackers that can do that.
- [60:03]
Dan Morin
Sure.
- [60:03]
Micah Sargent
My point is the company heard that this was an issue and then worked to correct it. And I don't see OpenAI based on what we've seen thus far and its behavior thus far are being a company that will respond in such a way.
- [60:23]
Dan Morin
I don't think they have that concern. I don't. I think this is works as designed for them. Isn't this cool that it can do this? Yeah.
- [60:32]
Micah Sargent
And that's upsetting.
- [60:34]
Dan Morin
Sure is.
- [60:35]
Micah Sargent
And that makes me feel a little powerless. But yeah, I don't know. I guess X at Sam Altman with your concerns. Maybe that'll do something. I don't know what else will because it's, it's. It's enabling some, some arguably dangerous things. So folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. The show publishes every Thursday at Twitter TV tnw. That is where you can to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats. I'll quickly remind you About Club Twit at Twit TV Club Twit $7 a month plus the return of our annual plan at Twit TV Club Twit with your club membership 2 week free trial by the way, you get every single one of our shows ad free. You get access to the Twit plus bonus feed that is extra content you won't find anywhere else and access to the Members only Discord Server, a fun place to go to chat with your friends, fellow Club Twit members, and also those of us here at Twit. And that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart knowing that you're helping support the work we do here on the network. Just last night I was doing Micah's Crafting corner. We had a great time building the latest of the Lego succulents and it turned out great and we had some really fun cozy conversations while we just sat back and listened listen to music and had a chill time. Somebody said wow, this is cozy af and I said that's exactly what I was hoping for. So if that sounds good to you, join the club. Twitter TV Club Twit we love, love love to have you. Dan Morin thank you so much for being here with me this entire episode. If people want to keep up to date with what you're doing, where should they go to do so?
- [62:23]
Dan Morin
Thank you very much for having me. Micah. Always a delight. Love to talk to you. You can find me a bunch of different places I host Clockwise over at Relay FM with Micah every Wednesday. I do a number of other tech podcasts including the Rebound which you can find@reboundcast.com and I am a contributor@six colors.com. you can find out all about this everything I do, including my many books that I've written which I if you're watching in video I display behind me in a bookshelf. They're kind of far away so they're hard to read, but you can find out all about those and everything else I do@dmorin.com beautiful.
- [62:58]
Micah Sargent
So head there people. You can also find me online at Micah Sargent on many social media network or head to Chihuahua Coffee that's C H I H u a H u a Coffee where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Be sure to check out Hands on Mac and iOS today, later today and of course every Sunday you can catch Hands on Tech where I take your tech questions and do my best to answer them. Thanks so much for tuning in. I appreciate each and every one of you and I'LL catch you again soon for another episode of Tech News Weekly. We're going to have a guest host next week, so thank you all and goodbye.
- [63:35]
C
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