Tech giants deliberately degrade user experiences once they've trapped people through network effects and high switching costs. Google's $68 million settlement exposes how platforms exploit regulatory capture and weak antitrust enforcement to spy on users without consequence, proving that careless billionaires operate unchecked in a policy environment designed to let monopolists profit from surveillance.
Google Assistant's accidental activations represent technical flaws in voice technology, not deliberate surveillance schemes. The $68 million settlement addresses legitimate privacy concerns about false triggers, which is why Google denied any wrongdoing in court, showing that companies face real accountability through litigation when systems malfunction and inadvertently bypass safety systems.
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