I can’t imagine how quickly they would be laughed out of a court with the argument of “you can’t split up our products, you see, the icons are all thematically the same!”

I don't think the parent meant this literal situation to work out.

It's more like building a passive perception of belonging-together over a prolonged period of time, where this is only one step of many, resulting in a subtle shifting of the framing when the discussion happens.

And I can see it, tbh.

According to this guy's various interviews over the last few months he's trying to integrate a lot of G-Suite services together into a single offering, so it won't just be the icons that are the same. Who knows, by the time the antitrust case comes close to any sort of conclusion they might actually have a single product that can't be easily split anymore. He's even trying to add in "anticipatory experiences" (his words)[1] that make the product feel like it just gets the work you're trying to do. This obviously plays directly to Google's strengths as an engineering and ML powerhouse, and who knows maybe that'll be an argument they can make too.

1: https://www.protocol.com/javier-soltero-google-microsoft-int...

I cannot wait for this moment

One of the cool things about Google has always been that it is an ecosystem of disparate tools that work together.

Now, I suppose they have the existential incentive to meld those tools into a cloud amoeba, for precisely the purpose that you mention.

I hope they get broken up, because maybe the new Gmail will go back to the older, better logo.

Cloud amoeba wins the phrase of the week.

Posed as a more general question: In what ways can a company that handles the information flow of lawmakers (personal info, browsing habits, software updates, etc) can influence their acting by psychological backdoors?