The internet used to be a source of freedom. Now that freedom only exists in edges, cracks, and outlying areas after much of the internet was monopolized by a handful of Big Tech companies. And no company has done more to change the internet than Google. What was once a useful no-frills search engine that ‘ranked’ sites by popularity became its own evil empire that defines what appears and what doesn’t.

(Full disclosure, at some point, after writing critically about Google, its search engine decided I should disappear. The same thing has happened to many conservatives, sites, and entire realms of ideas.)

And as Google expanded its reach to be a browser, Chrome, a dominant OS, Android, a range of hardware, Pixel, and Chromebooks, and ad search alliances, alternatives simply disappeared.

Google’s dream for search was eliminating the actual sites and turning results into summaries. Now it’s closer than ever to its dream with AI summaries. But now a federal judge ruled that its search is a monopoly. The verdict is decades overdue and the penalty will be more likely to inhibit the deals it cut with companies like Apple, but it’s an important step forward to rolling back some of Google’s unchecked power.

And ditto for Big Tech.

There are still few alternatives to Google Search. Where there was once an array of alternative search engines, today there’s Microsoft’s Bing (DuckDuckGo is just Bing’s results anonymized) and Brave Search. The handful of others are even smaller and more fitful. And there may be no further development in the field because everyone is racing to build their own AI empires that will spit out results through chatbots rather than providing actual links in response to queries. But at least there may be a tool for taking on Google.

And that may mean hope for conservatives and conservative ideas.