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Can you imagine your life without Google? Google Search, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Wallet, Google Drive, the Google Pixel phoneyou could probably live your entire digital life within the Google ecosystem. Many, including the Justice Department, say thats a problem. The department recently won antitrust cases against Googles search engine and ad placement businesses. This may all feel abstract and perhaps invisible to most consumers. Google, Microsoft, Applethey constitute the digital water were all swimming in, and their monopoly raises prices, stifles innovation, and shapes our lives often to our detriment. The landmark antitrust case against Google marks a big victory against this status quo. Heres why its so important. Monopolies create higher advertising costs Imagine promoting your business in a small town. You might buy an ad in the newspaper, put up a billboard, and run a spot on the local radio. Because these outlets are independent, you have lower prices and more advertising options. Now, imagine that the newspaper, billboard, and radio station are all owned by the same company. That shifts the dynamic: Because there is no competition for your ad dollars, prices are higher. Thats essentially what the Google Ad business achieved, especially considering how critical digital advertising has become to businesses. People arent watching commercials anymore. Theyre browsing the web during a commercial break. Googles monopoly on digital ads allows it to raise prices, making it harder for smaller businesses to compete and thrive. Googles monopoly created a less user-friendly internet Historically, about 90% of search traffic comes from Google, giving it a lot of power. For instance, Google uses an algorithm that examines web pages to score how relevant it is for search phrases, like pizza shop Minneapolis or leaking fridge how to fix. Because Google search is so dominant, people and companies who build and run websites do so with Googles algorithm in mind. That means the user experience takes a back seat to Googles preferences. If youve been to any recipe website lately, you know what Im talking about. In a recent episode of the podcast Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara, former FTC chair Lina Khan noted that a monopoly is when a company can offer worse products and/or raise costs without suffering any substantial consequences in the market. You can understand this in some ways as a firm becoming too big to care, Khan said. Many say the internet has become increasingly awful to use. The first page of search results are often dreck, in my opinion, written for Googles robots, not for humans. Its getting harder to find the information youre looking for, so a lot of people append their searches with tags for Reddit and YouTube, e.g. Hiking itinerary New Zealand Reddit or best salmon dip recipe YouTube, to cut through the SEO slop. Googles search monopoly could be a chokepoint for information Because of its dominance, Google can evolve in the direction of its own interests, rather than the interests of the user individually or collectively. Its not wild to imagine that Google can throttle searches for sensitive topics. During COVID, a 2020 Senate Commerce Committee hearing called Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and then-Twitters then-CEO Jack Dorsey to question them about censoring conservative voices. Back in 2017, the World Socialist Web Site alleged that Google restricted access to 13 progressive and anti-war websites. For users, the question is not whether Googles algorithmic policies line up with your political views but whether Google can put its thumb on the scale regarding your access to information, based on whats advantageous for Google . It definitely can, and it definitely has. Monopolies stifle innovation Google can throw its weight around to thwart competition. In 2023, internet users noticed that YouTube (which Google owns) ran five seconds slower on the Mozilla Firefox browser than on Google Chrome. Ostensibly, Google tuned YouTube to purposely run slower on a competitors browser to encourage users to switch to Chrome. Google, like many large companies, tends to acquire burgeoning competition rather than innovate in-house. Google has acquired hundreds of companies, from data analytics firms to rival search engines, from virtual reality developers to mapping products. When a company can buy out all the competition, consumers lose out on new ideas and better products, because the company has no incentive to pursue them. The ruling The ruling found that Googles default status with makers of smartphones, tablets, and laptops locked out rivals like Bing and DuckDuckGo, and that the integration of Googles adtech tools created a feedback loop that entrenched its monopoly. Googles ad business is facing its own antitrust lawsuit and may be broken up. The Department of Justice argues that Googles dominance in search (and its vast collection of user data) positions Google to achieve a similar feedback loop in AI-powered search and assistantswhich could create a new monopoly. The DOJ has proposed forcing Google to sell Chrome and license some of its core search technologies to competitors, as well as ending default search agreements and allowing more visibility into how search results are ranked. The DOJ proposed Google give advance notice of AI-related acquisitions. Both sides have given their closing arguments and now await the judges ruling, which is expected by August. This case is a blow against Big Tech in general, which has monopolized almost the entire digital world. I can only hope the FTCs antitrust case against Meta plays out in a similar fashion, and facilitates a return to a freer, more innovative digital world. Lindsey Witmer Collins is CEO of WLCM App Studio and Scribbly Books
Category:
E-Commerce
Everyone in Washington knows the score: Americas rare earth supply chain runs straight through China. Its one of the few issues before Congress that enjoys bipartisan support. But most of the solutions on the table remain shortsighted, dominated by two false binaries: Mine more at home or buy more from allies abroad. And yet, the most immediate solution is one barely being discussed. What is missing from the conversation in both Congress and the Trump administration is a faster, cleaner option: recovering rare earth elements from materials weve already used. If were serious about decoupling from China, recycling rare earth elements from end-of-life products is essential. However, current federal policy has yet to fully recognize this opportunity or support it at scale. Rare earth elements power the permanent magnets that drive everything from consumer electronics and medical devices to data centers and defense systems. China controls over 90% of rare earth processing capacity and 70% of production. Billions of dollars have been invested in reshoring some of this value chain, but the pace is glacial, and opening new mines will take years, if not decades. Recycling as an option Meanwhile, the U.S. is sitting on an untapped domestic source of these very elements: smartphones, cars, appliances, hard drives, and other products we discard every year. Less than 1% of rare earth elements are recycled. Today, the vast majority end up in landfills or are shipped abroad for low-value scrap. With the right policy and technology support, we could be recycling a meaningful share of the rare earth elements we need, right here at home. To be clear, recycling wont eliminate the need for new mining altogether, but it can dramatically reduce our dependence on an unstable supply chain. So why has Congress largely ignored this path? In part, its due to outdated thinking. For decades, rare earth elements were treated as byproducts, not priorities. But the world has changed, and the stakes have risen. As we transition to an electrified economy where everything from personal mobility to manufacturing depends on electrified systems, we need to treat these elements as the national security assets they are and plan for their full lifecycle. Three steps to hasten recycling Recent moves by the Trump administration to invoke the Defense Production Act to support the critical minerals supply chain show that wake-up calls are finally being heard at the highest levels. But waivers alone wont solve the issue. The administration and Congress can take three concrete steps now to accelerate domestic rare earth recycling. 1. Treat end-of-life rare earth elements as a strategic resource. Just as we stockpile oil, we should be inventorying our above-ground, urban minethe stream of magnets and motors already in circulation. This potential is huge: By 2035, the U.S. is expected to generate 43,000 metric tons of end-of-life magnets that could otherwise end up in overseas scrapyards. This untapped above-ground mine is a unique opportunity to secure our critical supply chains, and it should be protected with reinforced export controls.2. Empower federal agencies to take action. The Department of Defense (DOD) and Department of Energy are globally recognized as the most powerful accelerators of strategic industries, fueling Americas rise in defense, technology, and energy leadership. Their contribution has never been more needed. Without immediate action to recycle our retired defense systems, we risk losing critical ground. Congress and the administration now have a unique opportunity to empower these agencies and secure vital elements, strengthen our innovation ecosystem, and ignite a domestic industry, before its too late. 3. Direct federal budgets to scale domestic capacity. We now have the tools and technologies to reshape our critical elements supply chain. Traceability solutions are ready and aligned with DOD requirements to avoid entities of concern, yet the majority of rare earths are still processed in China. Agencies like the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, and DOD form the powertrain to fast-track strategic projects and scale domestic capacity. Whats needed now is for the administration to seize the full potential of this moment and direct budget to turn readiness into resilience. Invest in infrastructure and incentives now The urgency is real. China has once again demonstrated it can rapidly snap export controls in and out of effect, perpetuating volatile market dynamics, serving as a not-so-subtle reminder of how fragile our current supply chain really is. To break the dependency, Congress should support all viable paths to resilience, including setting policies that will leverage the existing above-ground mine. We dont need to wait a decade to build new mines or hope for more reliable trade partners. The materials we need are already here, in products weve already used. We can start recovering rare earth elements here and now. But unlocking that potential will take broader thinking. Policymakers must expand their focus beyond extraction and invest in the infrastructure and incentives that will save this above-ground mine. By keeping critical elements within our borders and recovering them from end-of-life materials, we can strengthen national security, drive economic growth, support American jobs, and secure the future of U.S. innovation and technological leadership. The industry stands ready; it is now up to the administration to capitalize on this momentum. Ahmad Ghahreman is CEO and cofounder of Cyclic Materials.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Ricardo Dollero graduated from UCLA last May with great grades and a robust resume of extracurriculars, he wasnt expecting a particularly difficult job search. After majoring in anthropology, he looked for jobs at museums or nonprofits, but after months of scouring online job boards and applying for everything he felt qualified for, Dollero still hadnt found a job. Thats when my partner and I decided, lets leave the United States and live an adventure and start our careers in another country where our degrees actually have value, he says. By February, they had secured positions teaching English in a school in Thailand. Its a path recent graduates looking to experience a new culture have chosen for decades. The agency Dollero used, Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), has been around since 1947. In recent years, though, grads from U.S. universities have increasingly been choosing to go abroad to escape the challenging job market at home. Although June data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a rosy picture of the current job market, with 147,000 jobs added and unemployment falling to 4.1%, entry-level jobs are becoming ever more elusive. Starting in September 2018, the percentage of unemployed recent graduates has consistently been higher than the overall unemployment rate. As of March 2025, the percentage differed by nearly 2%, with 5.8% of recent grads unemployed compared to 4.0% of all workers. This means young college-educated workers have spent years facing an especially competitive and difficult job market. And these challenges are only growing as more companies remove entry-level jobs in favor of using AI. In fact, 40% of employers expect to reduce their workforce and automate tasks with AI. With so few opportunities available, many recent graduates struggling in their job search are seeking alternatives to traditional nine-five office jobsincluding opportunities to work abroad. We have indeed observed a notable increase in interest from recent college graduates seeking TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification and opportunities to teach abroad, says Ian OSullivan, owner of the TEFL Institute. The appeal of gaining global experience, developing transferable skills, and making a meaningful impact has driven more young adults to consider TEFL as a viable and exciting option. The TEFL Institute is one of hundreds of organizations providing certification courses that teach people how to teach English as a foreign language. Many of these courses require no prior teaching experience and many of the companies offering them also guide new teachers through the process of finding a job abroad. The extra support makes these programs ideal for recent graduates, many of whom have never traveled outside their home countries or worked a full-time job before. For Dollero, having an organization help with the process of getting set up in his new home made it easier to jump into his role as a teacherone that he describes as very fulfilling. One very specific thing that has marked my time here in Thailand is the respect that the students have for the teachers, Dollero says. Its just heartwarming that they want you there. These positive experiences differ from teaching in the United States, where teacher shortages prevail not because there is a lack of passionate new teachers but because of low salaries, difficult working conditions, and a lack of support at work, according to a recent analysis from the Learning Policy Institute. A typical contract for teaching English at a school or language center abroad lasts one academic year, typically 9 to 12 months. Many teachers choose to renew their contracts or find a new TEFL job in yet another country. Others choose to use their experience in education to find teaching jobs closer to home. While he isnt yet sure what the rest of his career will bring, or whether he will choose to extend his time in Thailand, Dollero notes that his teaching experience has already helped him grow as a person. He’s learned to effectively manage people, organize his time, and become more adaptable. While the need for technological skills in the labor market is expected to grow the fastest, many soft skills are also expected to rise in importance over the next five years, according to insights from the World Economic Forums 2025 Future of Jobs Report. Creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, and curiosity have all become increasingly important as the workforce adapts after the COVID-19 pandemic and in the wake of innovations like AI. These skills, and many others, are the type one can learn from taking on new experiences, such as navigating a new culture and managing a classroom. Regardless of whether recent graduates choose to remain teachers after their TEFL experience, the soft skills they develop can open doors. Many of our graduates have shared inspiring stories about how TEFL has transformed their professional and personal lives, opening doors to international careers, remote work opportunities, and lifelong friendships, OSullivan says. The experience not only enhances employability but also fosters a global perspective that is highly valued in todays interconnected world. Back at home, many graduates are pessimistic about the job market. Over half (56%) of the class of 2025 reports feeling somewhat or very pessimistic about starting their careers according to a recent report by the job board Handshake. For students having trouble finding a job after college, like he did, Dollero highly recommends a TEFL job. Im 100% for others doing what I did, Dollero says. Just because youre being rejected from hundreds of jobs in the United States doesnt mean its going to be the same thing in another place.
Category:
E-Commerce
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