Tech

Justice Dept. sues Google over digital advertising dominance

Published

3 years ago

January 25, 2023

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department and eight states filed an antitrust suit against Google on Tuesday, seeking to shatter its alleged monopoly on the entire ecosystem of online advertising as a hurtful burden to advertisers, consumers and even the U.S. government.

The government alleged in the complaint that Google is looking to “neutralize or eliminate” rivals in the online ad marketplace through acquisitions and to force advertisers to use its products by making it difficult to use competitors’ offerings. It’s part of a new, if slow and halting, push by the U.S. to rein in big tech companies that have enjoyed largely unbridled growth in the past decade and a half.

“Monopolies threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based. They stifle innovation, they hurt producers and workers, and they increase costs for consumers,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Tuesday.

For 15 years, Garland said, Google has “pursued a course of anti-competitive conduct” that has stalled the rise of rival technologies and manipulated the mechanics of online ad auctions to force advertisers and publishers to use its tools. In so doing, he added, Google ”engaged in exclusionary conduct” that has “severely weakened,” if not destroyed, competition in the ad tech industry.

The suit, the latest legal action brought by the government against Google, accuses the company of unlawfully monopolizing the way ads are served online by excluding competitors. Google’s ad manager lets large publishers who have significant direct sales manage their advertisements. The ad exchange, meanwhile, is a real-time marketplace to buy and sell online display ads.

Garland said Google controls the technology used by most major website publishers to offer advertising space for sale, as well as the largest ad exchange that matches publishers and advertisers together when ad space is sold. The result, he added, is that “website creators earn less and advertisers pay more.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, demands that Google divest itself of the businesses of controlling the technical tools that manage the buying, selling and auctioning of digital display advertising, remaining with search — its core business — and other products and services including YouTube, Gmail and cloud services.

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, said in a statement that the suit “doubles down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.” Digital ads currently account for about 80% of Google’s revenue, and by and large support its other, less lucrative endeavors.

Tuesday’s lawsuit comes as the U.S. government is increasingly looking to rein in Big Tech’s dominance, although such legal action can take years to complete and Congress has not passed any recent legislation seeking to curb the influence of the tech industry’s largest players.

The European Union has been more active. It launched an antitrust investigation into Google’s digital ad dominance in 2021. British and European regulators are also looking into whether an agreement for online display advertising services between Google and Meta breached rules on fair competition.

An internet services trade group that includes Google as a member described the lawsuit and its “radical structural remedies” as unjustified.

Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said competition for advertising is fierce and the “governments’ contention that digital ads aren’t in competition with print, broadcast, and outdoor advertising defies reason.”

Dina Srinivasan, a Yale University fellow and adtech expert, said the lawsuit is “huge” because it aligns the entire nation — state and federal governments — in a bipartisan legal offensive against Google. In December 2020, 16 states and Puerto Rico sued Google over the exact same issues.

The current online ad market, Srinivasan said, “is broken and totally inefficient.” The fact that intermediaries are getting 30% to 50% of the take on each ad trade is “an insane inefficiency to have baked into the U.S. economy.” She called it “a massive tax on the free internet and consumers at large. It directly affects the viability of a free press” as well.

As with many highly complex technical markets, it has taken time for federal and state regulators and policymakers to catch up with and understand the online ad market. Srinivasan noted that it took a decade before they woke up to the perils of high-speed trading in financial markets and began adopting measures to discourage it.

This lawsuit seeks to apply to the digital ad market the same rules that apply to the financial markets, she said. Brokers, banks and other companies that have sometimes competing interests aren’t permitted to own the New York Stock Exchange.

Google held nearly 29% of the U.S. digital advertising market — it includes all the ads people see on computers. phones, tablets and other internet-connected devices — in 2022, according to research firm Insider Intelligence. Facebook parent company Meta is second, with nearly 20% of the market. Amazon is a distant, but growing, third.

But that’s not the lawsuit’s concern. It is focused on the technical market mechanisms that Google controls, including the ad server it developed building on the 2008 purchase of market-dominating DoubleClick. DOJ says Google has a more than 90% share of the business that serves ads to websites and controls about 80% of the “buy-side” Google Ads network where advertisers compete to place ads.

Google, the lawsuit states, has over the past 15 years “used acquisitions and market power across adjacent ad tech markets to quash the rise of rivals, tighten its control over the manner and means through which digital advertising transactions occur, and prevent publishers and advertisers from working effectively with Google’s rivals.”

This is the latest legal action taken against Google by either the Justice Department or local state governments. In October 2020, for instance, the Trump administration and 11 state attorneys general sued Google for violating antitrust laws, alleging anticompetitive practices in the search and search advertising markets.

Asked why the Justice Department would bring the suit when a similar complaint has already been filed by states, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, the department’s top antitrust official, said, “We conducted our own investigation, and that investigation occurred over many years.”

The states taking part in Tuesday’s suit include California, Virginia, Connecticut, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee.

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Tech

NASA Rolls Out Massive SLS Rocket Stage for Artemis III Mission to Kennedy Space Center

Published

2 months ago

April 13, 2026

Willie David

Pictured above is the top four-fifths of the SLS (Space Launch System) core stage – the section containing the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank, and forward skirt. NASA will roll the largest section of the agency’s SLS rocket that will launch the second crewed Artemis mission under the Artemis III mission out of NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility on Monday, April 20. Credit: NASA

NEW ORLEANS (FNN) — NASA will roll out the largest section of its Space Launch System rocket on Monday, April 20, marking a major milestone for the Artemis III mission.

The section, representing the top four-fifths of the SLS core stage, is being moved from NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. It includes the liquid hydrogen tank, liquid oxygen tank, intertank and forward skirt. The structure will be loaded onto NASA’s Pegasus barge for transport to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

CORE STAGE DELIVERY AND INTEGRATION

Once the core stage arrives at Kennedy Space Center, teams will complete final outfitting and vertical integration. The hardware will then be transferred to NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program for stacking and launch preparation.

The Artemis III engine section and boat-tail, which protects the engines during launch, were previously moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building in July 2025. The four RS-25 engines are scheduled to arrive from Stennis Space Center in Mississippi no later than July 2026 for integration.

POWERING THE ARTEMIS III MISSION

Equipped with four RS-25 engines, the SLS core stage will generate more than 2 million pounds of thrust, enabling the launch of astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft.

Artemis III is currently targeted for launch in 2027, following the successful Artemis II mission, which completed a crewed flight around the Moon on April 10.

NASA’S MOON-TO-MARS STRATEGY

The Artemis III mission is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program, aimed at returning astronauts to the Moon and establishing a sustained human presence.

The mission will test critical capabilities, including rendezvous and docking between the Orion spacecraft and commercial systems needed for future lunar landings, currently planned for 2028.

NASA is working in partnership with Boeing, the SLS core stage lead contractor, and L3Harris Technologies, the lead contractor for the RS-25 engines. The core stage remains the backbone of the SLS rocket and is manufactured at the Michoud Assembly Facilit

Tech

NASA’s Artemis II Astronauts Begin Historic Journey Around the Moon After Key Orion Engine Burn

Published

2 months ago

April 3, 2026

Willie David

Earth's crescent is seen from a solar array camera on the Orion spacecraft on the first flight day of the Artemis II mission. Credit: NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (FNN) — For the first time in more than 50 years, astronauts on a NASA mission are headed around the Moon after successfully completing a critical burn of the Orion spacecraft’s main engine.

The approximately six-minute firing of Orion’s service module engine Thursday — known as the translunar injection burn — accelerated the spacecraft and its crew beyond Earth’s orbit, placing them on a trajectory toward the Moon.

Aboard the spacecraft are NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch, along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“Today, for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, humans have departed Earth orbit,” said Dr. Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. “Reid, Victor, Christina and Jeremy now are on a precise trajectory toward the Moon. Orion is operating with crew for the first time in space, and we are gathering critical data and learning from each step.”

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, beginning a planned 10-day test mission around the Moon and back.

Successful Launch and Spacecraft Activation

Shortly after reaching space, Orion deployed its four solar array wings, allowing the spacecraft to generate power from the Sun. The crew and mission controllers then began transitioning the spacecraft from launch to normal flight operations while checking critical onboard systems.

About 49 minutes into the flight, the rocket’s upper stage fired to place Orion into an elliptical orbit around Earth. A second burn propelled the spacecraft — named “Integrity” by the crew — into a high Earth orbit extending roughly 46,000 miles above the planet for nearly 24 hours of system testing.

Following the maneuver, Orion separated from the upper stage and began flying independently.

System Tests and Crew Operations in Space

During the early phase of the mission, the astronauts conducted a manual piloting demonstration to evaluate Orion’s handling capabilities using the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage as a docking target.

After the test, Orion executed an automated departure burn to safely move away from the stage. The propulsion stage later performed a disposal burn before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere over a remote area of the Pacific Ocean.

Before its re-entry, four small CubeSats were deployed from the rocket’s Orion stage adapter to conduct separate scientific missions.

Mission teams also transitioned communications to NASA’s Deep Space Network while the crew adjusted to the space environment. Astronauts completed their first rest periods, performed onboard exercise routines, restored the spacecraft’s toilet to normal operations and prepared the spacecraft for the translunar injection burn.

Lunar Flyby and Artemis Program Goals

The crew is scheduled to conduct a lunar flyby Monday, April 6, when astronauts will capture high-resolution images and make observations of the Moon’s surface — including portions of the lunar far side rarely seen directly by humans.

Although the far side will only be partially illuminated during the flyby, the lighting conditions are expected to cast long shadows across the terrain, highlighting ridges, slopes and crater rims that are difficult to observe under full sunlight.

After completing the flyby, the astronauts will return to Earth and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

The mission marks a major milestone for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts on increasingly ambitious missions to explore the Moon, advance scientific discovery, stimulate economic growth and prepare for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Florida

VIDEO: NASA Artemis II Mission Sends Astronauts Around the Moon in First Crewed Test Since Apollo

Published

2 months ago

April 1, 2026

Willie David

The Artemis II crewed lunar mission launches from Kennedy Space Center on April 1, 2026. Four astronauts blasted off aboard a massive NASA rocket on a long-anticipated journey around the Moon—marking the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years. Photo by Nickolas Wolf / Florida National News.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (FNN) — NASA is preparing to launch the crew of Artemis II on a historic journey around the Moon, marking the first time astronauts will travel beyond low-Earth orbit since the era of Apollo Program.

The mission will lift off from Kennedy Space Center aboard the Space Launch System, carrying astronauts in the Orion spacecraft on a multi-day flight that will orbit the Moon before returning safely to Earth.

Historic Return to Deep Space Artemis II is the first crewed mission in NASA’s Artemis program, designed to return humans to the Moon and eventually establish a sustainable presence there. The flight follows the successful uncrewed test mission, Artemis I, which demonstrated the Orion spacecraft’s ability to travel to lunar orbit and return to Earth. The Artemis program represents NASA’s long-term strategy to explore deep space, including preparing astronauts for future missions to Mars. Astronaut Crew to Circle the Moon

The Artemis II crew includes four astronauts selected to test Orion’s life-support systems and navigation capabilities during the mission.

Their journey will take them thousands of miles beyond the Moon before returning to Earth. The mission will also demonstrate critical technologies needed for future lunar landings planned under upcoming Artemis missions.

Florida’s Space Coast in the Global Spotlight The launch is expected to draw thousands of spectators to Florida’s Space Coast, including viewers gathering along beaches in Cocoa Beach and nearby communities to witness the historic liftoff.