#Lemley

[theselkiesea]

Using an A.I image maker to develop the look and style for my character, Lennox Lemley

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Big Tech disrupted disruption

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/08/permanent-overlords/#republicans-want-to-defund-the-police

Before "disruption" turned into a punchline, it was a genuinely exciting idea. Using technology, we could connect people to one another and allow them to collaborate, share, and cooperate to make great things happen.

It's easy (and valid) to dismiss the "disruption" of Uber, which "disrupted" taxis and transit by losing $31b worth of Saudi royal money in a bid to collapse the world's rival transportation system, while quietly promising its investors that it would someday have pricing power as a monopoly, and would attain profit through price-gouging and wage-theft.

Uber's disruption story was wreathed in bullshit: lies about the "independence" of its drivers, about the imminence of self-driving taxis, about the impact that replacing buses and subways with millions of circling, empty cars would have on traffic congestion. There were and are plenty of problems with traditional taxis and transit, but Uber magnified these problems, under cover of "disrupting" them away.

But there are other feats of high-tech disruption that were and are genuinely transformative – Wikipedia, GNU/Linux, RSS, and more. These disruptive technologies altered the balance of power between powerful institutions and the businesses, communities and individuals they dominated, in ways that have proven both beneficial and durable.

When we speak of commercial disruption today, we usually mean a tech company disrupting a non-tech company. Tinder disrupts singles bars. Netflix disrupts Blockbuster. Airbnb disrupts Marriott.

But the history of "disruption" features far more examples of tech companies disrupting other tech companies: DEC disrupts IBM. Netscape disrupts Microsoft. Google disrupts Yahoo. Nokia disrupts Kodak, sure – but then Apple disrupts Nokia. It's only natural that the businesses most vulnerable to digital disruption are other digital businesses.

And yet…disruption is nowhere to be seen when it comes to the tech sector itself. Five giant companies have been running the show for more than a decade. A couple of these companies (Apple, Microsoft) are Gen-Xers, having been born in the 70s, then there's a couple of Millennials (Amazon, Google), and that one Gen-Z kid (Facebook). Big Tech shows no sign of being disrupted, despite the continuous enshittification of their core products and services. How can this be? Has Big Tech disrupted disruption itself?

That's the contention of "Coopting Disruption," a new paper from two law profs: Mark Lemley (Stanford) and Matthew Wansley (Yeshiva U):

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4713845

The paper opens with a review of the literature on disruption. Big companies have some major advantages: they've got people and infrastructure they can leverage to bring new products to market more cheaply than startups. They've got existing relationships with suppliers, distributors and customers. People trust them.

Diversified, monopolistic companies are also able to capture "involuntary spillovers": when Google spends money on AI for image recognition, it can improve Google Photos, YouTube, Android, Search, Maps and many other products. A startup with just one product can't capitalize on these spillovers in the same way, so it doesn't have the same incentives to spend big on R&D.

Finally, big companies have access to cheap money. They get better credit terms from lenders, they can float bonds, they can tap the public markets, or just spend their own profits on R&D. They can also afford to take a long view, because they're not tied to VCs whose funds turn over every 5-10 years. Big companies get cheap money, play a long game, pay less to innovate and get more out of innovation.

But those advantages are swamped by the disadvantages of incumbency, all the various curses of bigness. Take Arrow's "replacement effect": new companies that compete with incumbents drive down the incumbents' prices and tempt their customers away. But an incumbent that buys a disruptive new company can just shut it down, and whittle down its ideas to "sustaining innovation" (small improvements to existing products), killing "disruptive innovation" (major changes that make the existing products obsolete).

Arrow's Replacement Effect also comes into play before a new product even exists. An incumbent that allows a rival to do R&D that would eventually disrupt its product is at risk; but if the incumbent buys this pre-product, R&D-heavy startup, it can turn the research to sustaining innovation and defund any disruptive innovation.

Arrow asks us to look at the innovation question from the point of view of the company as a whole. Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma" looks at the motivations of individual decision-makers in large, successful companies. These individuals don't want to disrupt their own business, because that will render some part of their own company obsolete (perhaps their own division!). They also don't want to radically change their customers' businesses, because those customers would also face negative effects from disruption.

A startup, by contrast, has no existing successful divisions and no giant customers to safeguard. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain from disruption. Where a large company has no way for individual employees to initiate major changes in corporate strategy, a startup has fewer hops between employees and management. What's more, a startup that rewards an employee's good idea with a stock-grant ties that employee's future finances to the outcome of that idea – while a giant corporation's stock bonuses are only incidentally tied to the ideas of any individual worker.

Big companies are where good ideas go to die. If a big company passes on its employees' cool, disruptive ideas, that's the end of the story for that idea. But even if 100 VCs pass on a startup's cool idea and only one VC funds it, the startup still gets to pursue that idea. In startup land, a good idea gets lots of chances – in a big company, it only gets one.

Given how innately disruptable tech companies are, given how hard it is for big companies to innovate, and given how little innovation we've gotten from Big Tech, how is it that the tech giants haven't been disrupted?

The authors propose a four-step program for the would-be Tech Baron hoping to defend their turf from disruption.

First, gather information about startups that might develop disruptive technologies and steer them away from competing with you, by investing in them or partnering with them.

Second, cut off any would-be competitor's supply of resources they need to develop a disruptive product that challenges your own.

Third, convince the government to pass regulations that big, established companies can comply with but that are business-killing challenges for small competitors.

Finally, buy up any company that resists your steering, succeeds despite your resource war, and escapes the compliance moats of regulation that favors incumbents.

Then: kill those companies.

The authors proceed to show that all four tactics are in play today. Big Tech companies operate their own VC funds, which means they get a look at every promising company in the field, even if they don't want to invest in them. Big Tech companies are also awash in money and their "rival" VCs know it, and so financial VCs and Big Tech collude to fund potential disruptors and then sell them to Big Tech companies as "aqui-hires" that see the disruption neutralized.

On resources, the authors focus on data, and how companies like Facebook have explicit policies of only permitting companies they don't see as potential disruptors to access Facebook data. They reproduce internal Facebook strategy memos that divide potential platform users into "existing competitors, possible future competitors, [or] developers that we have alignment with on business models." These categories allow Facebook to decide which companies are capable of developing disruptive products and which ones aren't. For example, Amazon – which doesn't compete with Facebook – is allowed to access FB data to target shoppers. But Messageme, a startup, was cut off from Facebook as soon as management perceived them as a future rival. Ironically – but unsurprisingly – Facebook spins these policies as pro-privacy, not anti-competitive.

These data policies cast a long shadow. They don't just block existing companies from accessing the data they need to pursue disruptive offerings – they also "send a message" to would-be founders and investors, letting them know that if they try to disrupt a tech giant, they will have their market oxygen cut off before they can draw breath. The only way to build a product that challenges Facebook is as Facebook's partner, under Facebook's direction, with Facebook's veto.

Next, regulation. Starting in 2019, Facebook started publishing full-page newspaper ads calling for regulation. Someone ghost-wrote a Washington Post op-ed under Zuckerberg's byline, arguing the case for more tech regulation. Google, Apple, OpenAI other tech giants have all (selectively) lobbied in favor of many regulations. These rules covered a lot of ground, but they all share a characteristic: complying with them requires huge amounts of money – money that giant tech companies can spare, but potential disruptors lack.

Finally, there's predatory acquisitions. Mark Zuckerberg, working without the benefit of a ghost writer (or in-house counsel to review his statements for actionable intent) has repeatedly confessed to buying companies like Instagram to ensure that they never grow to be competitors. As he told one colleague, "I remember your internal post about how Instagram was our threat and not Google+. You were basically right. The thing about startups though is you can often acquire them.”

All the tech giants are acquisition factories. Every successful Google product, almost without exception, is a product they bought from someone else. By contrast, Google's own internal products typically crash and burn, from G+ to Reader to Google Videos. Apple, meanwhile, buys 90 companies per year – Tim Apple brings home a new company for his shareholders more often than you bring home a bag of groceries for your family. All the Big Tech companies' AI offerings are acquisitions, and Apple has bought more AI companies than any of them.

Big Tech claims to be innovating, but it's really just operationalizing. Any company that threatens to disrupt a tech giant is bought, its products stripped of any really innovative features, and the residue is added to existing products as a "sustaining innovation" – a dot-release feature that has all the innovative disruption of rounding the corners on a new mobile phone.

The authors present three case-studies of tech companies using this four-point strategy to forestall disruption in AI, VR and self-driving cars. I'm not excited about any of these three categories, but it's clear that the tech giants are worried about them, and the authors make a devastating case for these disruptions being disrupted by Big Tech.

What do to about it? If we like (some) disruption, and if Big Tech is enshittifying at speed without facing dethroning-by-disruption, how do we get the dynamism and innovation that gave us the best of tech?

The authors make four suggestions.

First, revive the authorities under existing antitrust law to ban executives from Big Tech companies from serving on the boards of startups. More broadly, kill interlocking boards altogether. Remember, these powers already exist in the lawbooks, so accomplishing this goal means a change in enforcement priorities, not a new act of Congress or rulemaking. What's more, interlocking boards between competing companies are illegal per se, meaning there's no expensive, difficult fact-finding needed to demonstrate that two companies are breaking the law by sharing directors.

Next: create a nondiscrimination policy that requires the largest tech companies that share data with some unaffiliated companies to offer data on the same terms to other companies, except when they are direct competitors. They argue that this rule will keep tech giants from choking off disruptive technologies that make them obsolete (rather than competing with them).

On the subject of regulation and compliance moats, they have less concrete advice. They counsel lawmakers to greet tech giants' demands to be regulated with suspicion, to proceed with caution when they do regulate, and to shape regulation so that it doesn't limit market entry, by keeping in mind the disproportionate burdens regulations put on established giants and small new companies. This is all good advice, but it's more a set of principles than any kind of specific practice, test or procedure.

Finally, they call for increased scrutiny of mergers, including mergers between very large companies and small startups. They argue that existing law (Sec 2 of the Sherman Act and Sec 7 of the Clayton Act) both empower enforcers to block these acquisitions. They admit that the case-law on this is poor, but that just means that enforcers need to start making new case-law.

I like all of these suggestions! We're certainly enjoying a more activist set of regulators, who are more interested in Big Tech, than we've seen in generations.

But they are grossly under-resourced even without giving them additional duties. As Matt Stoller points out, "the DOJ's Antitrust Division has fewer people enforcing anti-monopoly laws in a $24 trillion economy than the Smithsonian Museum has security guards."

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/congressional-republicans-to-defund

What's more, Republicans are trying to slash their budgets even further. The American conservative movement has finally located a police force they're eager to defund: the corporate police who defend us all from predatory monopolies.

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[formlab]

Keith Lemley

[tdciago]

Fargo: Laundry Chutes and Ladders

It struck me that the home invasion sequence in "Insolubilia" is filled with both ladders and falls. Characters and objects repeatedly attempt to go up, only to be sent back to square one by taking a tumble, to borrow a phrase from Wayne. We have the ladder in the laundry chute, which in itself perfectly expresses the name of the game; the ladder to the attic; and the trellis over the porch. In the previous episode, a ladder also featured prominently in Dot's plan to confuse the people out to get her. I was reminded of "The Leftovers," in which ladders are frequently used to represent the concept of Jacob's Ladder, or the axis mundi. As it turns out, the game of Chutes and Ladders has its origins in a similar idea, that of gaining spiritual enlightenment.

"The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain liberation (Moksha) through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life...Presumably, reaching the last square...represented the attainment of Moksha (spiritual liberation)...the game represents the...quest to leave behind the trappings of worldly life and achieve union with God." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_and_ladders The original name of the game, Snakes and Ladders, is even more evocative of that quest, with the snakes being the devil and his temptations. Season 5 has frequently alluded to the devil as a snake, even in this episode, with Roy referring to Beelzebub and his serpent tongue. So up and down they go at Dot's house. Pace falls down the basement stairs. Later, the ladder symbolically falls on his neck. Both Gator and Brandy fall down the main stairs after Dot pulls a Jean Lundegaard/Odis Weff shower curtain maneuver, referencing both "Fargo" the movie and Season 4 of the show. The sledge hammer is triggered by Dot to fall on Lemley. Gator basically kicks Brandy down the front steps. Dot kicks the jack-o-lantern down the basement stairs. Scotty and Dot climb down the trellis, and Wayne is rolled off the roof. This constant battle between trying to be virtuous and getting sidetracked by vices may be viewed as a perpetual loop. We keep cycling through the game, with variations in movement each time, trying to reach the top of the ladder. So I wonder if this season is also showing us those variations in a time loop. Do the contradictions between scenes actually represent different iterations of the loop? When Munch describes being hired first and then selecting Donny as his partner, and Gator describes finding Donny first, who then presumably brings Munch into the plan, this is a contradiction in the narrative. But maybe it's not the same cycle of the narrative. These are just two variations that result in the same outcome: Munch and Donny kidnap Dot. It just took different moves to arrive at the same place on the game board. The game is being played multiple times. When Wayne ties Scotty's tie in the first episode , he says, "Over the mountain and through the loop." In this episode, Roy says, "Loop's closed." When Gator is confused by the street signs in episode 3, he notes, "The phone's saying one thing, sign's saying something else. Turn right, circle back." The song "Simple Gifts" is heard when the militia is outside Roy's house in episode 3. Part of the lyrics are: When true simplicity is gained, To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed, To turn, turn will be our delight, Till by turning, turning we come 'round right. How many loops will it take to achieve the desired outcome?

[justdippers]

Zackery Lemley is a Cope WG dipper in Texas, TikTok zackerylemley

JustDippers original find - five new dippers every week!

[heavyweightnation]

Penn State Defeats Michigan Wrestling 27-9

Penn State Defeats Michigan Wrestling 27-9

Penn State put on a dominant display against the Michigan Wolverines tonight with multiple bonus point wins. The Nittany Lions were competing without Carter Starocci and Tyler Kasak* Match Results: 125- Braeden Davis (PSU) dec Micheal DeAugustino (Mich) 5-1 133- Dylan Ragusin (Mich) pin Aaron Nagao (PSU) 7:28 141- Beau Bartlett (PSU) dec Sergio Lemley (Mich) 7-5 149- David Evans (PSU) dec…

[joyfuladorable]

Tagged by @maxwellshimbo in this post

Share your wallpaper: On my laptop, it's this awesome art I got from @/kosakashuntaro; and on my tablet and phone, the lock and home screens are the respective pieces from this fic fanart I made cuz I can and will be proud of the shit I make!! (and also cuz Rise Capril is my current otp, lol)

Last song you listened to: According to my playlist, it was I’m Here to Stay by Ty Lemley? Sometimes, I download songs cuz I hear them from media I like and then forget where I got em from cuz it just gets thrown in my endless shuffle playlist. It’s got a nice swaying tone and also is from 1963 apparently??? So, I’m gonna assume it’s from the ending credits of a WWDITS ep

Currently reading: Rereading the fic Pretend that I Never Left because it's one of my favorite 2k3 Mikey fics!!

Last movie you watched: In theaters, it was Everything Everywhere All at Once, which was absolutely Magical to Experience. But just in general, uh, I think it was the Rise movie? Or maybe Knives Out/Glass Onion?? I don't watch many movies, lol

Craving: A hug from a loved one! I'm incredibly touch-starved and cope by having fictional characters be platonically affectionate for me...

What are you wearing right now: Comfy house clothes for mild weather

How tall are you: 5'3"

Piercings: Double lobe piercings!

Tattoos: Eventually!

Glasses? Contacts?: Proud and eternal glasses-wearer✌🏼✌🏼

Last drink: My siblings tried to get me to drink a lychee-flavored alcohol on my b-day, and I took a single sip, made a face cuz it tasted like medicine, and put it down, lmao. Alcohol is Not for me!

Last thing I ate: Cereal for dinner

Last show: Rewatched Rise, but only the Casey episodes ;P

Favorite color: Any purple and pastel/golden yellows

Current obsession: TMNT, reignited from the constantly burning embers of my teen years

Unrelated obsession: Unrelated to my current obsession, or just non-fandom related?? Uhhh, short-sleeved button ups with neat patterns, I guess

Any pets: Nope! I long for a precious kitty, but I am very much Allergic (mildly) and live in a household not suited for one

Do you have a crush on anyone: Lol, Absolutely Not!! I do follow a bunch of artists (writers, included) who I will OwO at cuz their art is so good and I wanna SCREAM about it in a totally normal way

Favorite fictional characters: Currently, it's 2k3 Mikey, Rise Casey Jones (Sr), and Laika from Dames and Dragons

The last place you traveled to: Off Island? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Oregon??? Pre-pandemic, for sure

Tagging (only if you wanna do it! no pressure!!): @redstringraven @forestwhisper3 and @lollyholly99

[collapsedsquid]

In early January 2020, the talk took a more serious turn. They believed the Virginia House of Delegates was being taken over by Jewish Marxists out to ban guns. They discussed going to a Second Amendment rally scheduled to take place in Richmond later that month, where they and other extremists would help spark the Boogaloo. They debated whether to go in guns blazing or to stay on the periphery, using sniper tactics to pick off people.

The agents were watching this in real time. So, too, was Windom, the prosecutor, trying to determine how serious Lemley and Mathews were about Richmond. Their chatter was so diffuse, it was hard to say, and most of what they said was still protected by the First Amendment.

By this time, the F.B.I. was not only recording everything; it was also relying on an undercover agent. A middle-aged man posing as a white-power biker, he had managed to infiltrate the Base and then Lemley’s circle. Now he was in Lemley’s living room. He tried to tease out details about Richmond.

“So what’s the significance of next week?” he asked Lemley on Jan. 11. The rally was to take place nine days later.

Lemley told him that many armed extremists would converge on Richmond. “And then some are being told, ‘This is it, we’re going to [expletive] storm the Capitol building.’”

Mathews said, “The minute that militias start hearing Boog’s on, boys — ”

“It’s on,” Lemley said.

But when the undercover agent asked for more detail, Lemley demurred. Lemley was considering going to a training camp in Michigan instead, he said. “We’re definitely going up to Michigan,” he said, and might continue on to Richmond, but “I certainly don’t want to be in the crowd, and I certainly don’t want to be storming any buildings with a bunch of retards.” He added, “Nobody’s really, like, drawn up a real plan.”

[coralpath]

the other day my friend was like [sees art of party member] ohh what a cute girl!! is that your character, lemley?

unfortunately i play a chronically ill whoremonger old man

[theselkiesea]

No one asked but these are my Tav's, since I don't think I'll ever truly leave this game.

Top: Lennox Lemley, half elf rogue and romancing Astarion.

Middle: Selkie Black, human druid and romancing Karlach

Bottom: Lilac Marple (Dark Urge Edition), tiefling bard and romancing Gale on current playthrough

[verydesperatehousewife]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Lemley Reindeer Christmas Mug Coffee Tea Art Signe.

[01courtreporter]

Mark Mauden - Memorials - Lemley Chapel

Lemley Chapel

Rebanvbpbv freeallxjailothers w bag Updated 858 458

[ulkaralakbarova]

An affair between the second in line to Britain’s throne and the princess of the feuding Irish spells doom for the young lovers. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Tristan: James Franco Isolde: Sophia Myles Marke: Rufus Sewell Donnchadh: David O’Hara Wictred: Mark Strong Melot: Henry Cavill Bragnae: Bronagh Gallagher Bodkin: Ronan Vibert Edyth: Lucy Russell Leon: JB Blanc Morholt: Graham Mullins Simon: Leo Gregory Orick: Dexter Fletcher Aragon: Richard Dillane Kurseval: Hans Martin Stier Kaye: Thomas Morris Anwick: Jamie Thomas King Rothgar: Wolfgang Müller Lady Serafine: Cheyenne Rushing Lady Marke: Barbora Kodetová Young Isolde: Isobel Moynihan Young Tristan: Thomas Brodie-Sangster Tournament Judge: Gordon Truefitt Young Melot: Myles Taylor Young Simon: Jack Montgomery Luther: Marek Vašut Irish Soldier: David Fisher Lady Aragon: Bronwen Davies Paddreggh: Philip O’Sullivan Tournament Crier: Nevan Finegan Coronation Priest: Jón Ólafsson Widseth: Todd Kramer Widseth’s Sister: Winter Ave Zoli Pict Guard: Miroslav Šimůnek Funeral Priest: Kevin Flood Film Crew: Director: Kevin Reynolds Music: Anne Dudley Editor: Peter Boyle Director of Photography: Artur Reinhart Executive Producer: Jim Lemley Casting: Kate Dowd Executive Producer: John Hardy Producer: Moshe Diamant Producer: Lisa Ellzey Producer: Giannina Facio Producer: Elie Samaha Executive Producer: Ridley Scott Executive Producer: Tony Scott Production Design: Mark Geraghty Set Decoration: Johnny Byrne Costume Design: Maurizio Millenotti Costume Supervisor: Hana Kučerová Writer: Dean Georgaris Executive Producer: Frank Hübner Executive Producer: Matthew Stillman Co-Producer: Anne Lai Co-Producer: Jan Fantl Co-Producer: Morgan O’Sullivan Co-Producer: James Flynn Stunt Coordinator: Nick Powell Unit Production Manager: John J. Kelly First Assistant Director: Robert Huberman Associate Producer: David Minkowski Associate Producer: Christian Frohn Associate Producer: Jennifer Leshnick Associate Editor: Pamela Power Associate Editor: Stephen Boucher Hairstylist: Stefano Ceccarelli Hairstylist: Jiří Farkaš Hairstylist: Alena Marečková Hairstylist: Mario Michisanti Hairstylist: Adéla Robová Hairstylist: Jaroslav Šámal Key Hair Stylist: Mirella Ginnoto Key Makeup Artist: Manlio Rocchetti Art Department Coordinator: Marketa Puzmanova Assistant Art Director: David Voborský Assistant Art Director: David Vondrasek 3D Animator: Ales Dlabac 3D Animator: Zbynek Travincky Visual Effects Supervisor: Jaroslav Polensky Title Designer: Anthony Wonsoff Visual Effects Coordinator: Jan Vseticek Visual Effects Producer: Vít Komrzý Visual Effects Supervisor: Marius Mohnssen Special Effects Supervisor: Pavel Sagner Special Effects Supervisor: Kevin Byrne Additional Still Photographer: Larry D. Horricks Camera Operator: Erwin Lanzensberger Camera Operator: Kacper Lisowski Second Unit Director of Photography: Miro Gábor Gaffer: Tony Devlin Key Grip: Helge Felgendreher Key Grip: Ivo Grešák Rigging Gaffer: Kriz David Still Photographer: Rico Torres Casting: Nancy Bishop Casting: Anja Dihrberg Casting: Kirsty Kinnear Assistant Costume Designer: Giovanni Casalnuovo Assistant Costume Designer: Mariano Tufano Costume Supervisor: Šárka Zázvorková Costume Supervisor: Sarka Zvolenska Key Costumer: Cathy Smith Seamstress: Larisa Šrámková Set Costumer: Rebecca Higginson Digital Intermediate: Mandy Rahn Assistant Editor: Geraint Huw Reynolds Music Editor: Sophie Cornet Music Editor: John Warhurst Script Supervisor: Catherine Allinson Script Supervisor: Peter J. Clark Choreographer: Lucie Samcova ADR Editor: Gareth Rhys Jones Boom Operator: Roman Rigo Foley: Jack Stew Foley Editor: Sefi Carmel Sound Designer: Samir Foco Sound Designer: Zeljko Lopicic-Lepierre Sound Effects Editor: Peter Crooks Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Howard Bargroff Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Graham Daniel Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Martin Schinz Sound Effects Editor: Srdjan Kurpjel Standby Art Director: Rory Bruen Movie Reviews:

[the-eternal-quest-for-balance]

Morning Briefing May 24, 2024 - Jerry Lemley Jr

[tieflingkisser]

Google sends DOJ unexpected check in attempt to avoid monopoly jury trial

Google steals DOJ tactic to dodge owing damages by paying DOJ upfront.

Last week, Google sent a cashier's check to the US government that it claimed in a court filing covers "every dollar the United States could conceivably hope to recover" in damages during the Google adtech monopoly trial scheduled to start this September. According to Google, sending the check moots the government's sole claim for damages, which in turn foils the government's plan to seek a jury trial under its damages claim. While Google disputes liability for any of the government's claims, the payment serves to "prevent the tail from wagging the dog," the court filing said.

[...]

It seems like Google is banking on buying its way out of a jury trial, preferring instead for a judge to weigh the trial's highly technical and unusually complex facts. Stanford Law School professor Mark Lemley told Reuters that he felt "skeptical Google’s gambit would prevail." Lemley suggested that Google may be overlooking that "a jury could ultimately decide higher damages than whatever Google put forward." Google told the court that the DOJ's plan to devote a significant portion of the trial to educating a jury could prolong the litigation, while mooting the damages claim and ordering a bench trial "streamlines the litigation." The Department of Justice is unlikely to back down from this fight after joining 17 states in filing the antitrust lawsuit against Google last year. In a recent court filing, the DOJ maintained allegations that Google violated the Sherman Act when it "stymied competition in open web display ad tech markets for over a decade," harming rivals as well as consumers.