Cutting off Google's control of the world's most popular browser may be necessary.
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Report: DOJ wants to force Google Chrome sale, Android de-bundling
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That's great news, and I hope they can get it done in the month-and-a-half before Trump eviscerates the DoJ and shifts to a pro-monopoly stance.
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Wouldn't it be great if we could find another Theodore Roosevelt? I mean... we're overdue.
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I'm not defending Trump, but he's not exactly pro-Google. He's also erratic enough that it's tough to know what will happen.
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I mean, Trump doesn't like Google because you can find anti-Trump articles in Google Search. So he may be pro-monopoly, but I suspect he won't be pro- this specific monopoly. Unless they bend the knee, which all of corporate America does seem to be preparing to do.
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Obviously the structural change of selling off Chrome is not viable, but if it can be used to anchor the back and forth for the eventual remedy (which I expect to be entirely behavior), then the proposal will have served its purpose.
The courts wouldn't go for it, but I'd prefer to see Alphabet split between the services (including search and cloud) and consumer application/device side (including Chrome and Android). I don't know where projects like Waymo and Gemini would fit in, though.
The courts wouldn't go for it, but I'd prefer to see Alphabet split between the services (including search and cloud) and consumer application/device side (including Chrome and Android). I don't know where projects like Waymo and Gemini would fit in, though.
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I think the point is that it's actually NOT preferred by many users, it's just what's there
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That the very existence of Chrome is anticompetitive was (at least to me) obvious from day one. The time to do this was fifteen years ago. That it's finally happening now, when it probably won't amount to anything, is that much more galling.
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Generally I fear that legislators, prosecutors, judges do not understand the lay of the technology land that they couldn't possibly address any of these things in a meaningful way.
The second order effects here are very complex and "remove chrome" doesn't necessarily impede Google from doing anything bad...
My favorite example being cookie banners on every site as if I need to make a legal agreement about cookies for every site I visit. No value there, nothing accomplished, just a mess.
The second order effects here are very complex and "remove chrome" doesn't necessarily impede Google from doing anything bad...
My favorite example being cookie banners on every site as if I need to make a legal agreement about cookies for every site I visit. No value there, nothing accomplished, just a mess.
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While they are at it make Microsoft divest Edge/Explorer and Apple divest Safari so no operating system has a browser cooked into the operating system. Make them all have multiple options pre-installed that the user chooses from. Maybe a little privacy and security will creep back in. Pipe dream but we can hope.
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My issue with splitting Google up is that I want Apple-like integration, but without Apple. Google is finally approaching having a complete Pixel ecosystem, and anything they are forced to spin off will by necessity not integrate as well.
There's got to be an appropriate remedy that won't negatively affect users, but I'm not sure what it would be off the top of my head. Maybe spinning off search and ads, and requiring the rest of Google to earn revenue by actually selling products instead of selling customers.
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The description including "radical agenda" seems like a calculated ploy to get Trump on their side.
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Opting out of AI data scraping is fantastical? Wow, just imagine being that much of a corporate lapdog that you would utter such things.
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No. Because Google is using anticompetitive tactics akin to the ones Microsoft used to foist IE on the early internet and effectively kill off competition (Example: Deliberately nerfing the YouTube experience in FireFox to make consumers think it's a less capable browser than Chrome) is why the DoJ wants to make Google sell their browser.
That's because the connection you've drawn up is faulty.
As stated above, Microsoft is not the exemplar you apparently think it is, because they did the exact same shit in the 90s with IE.
Also, Edge is Chrome in a clown suit.
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There's no market for a web browser that isn't in furtherance of gaining, maintaining, or defending against a monopoly. The charitable model barely keeps Firefox alive, and that's without having to pay whatever insane value the market would ascribe to Chrome. Who's gonna buy it, and of the few companies that a) might be able to afford it[1], b) might want it, do we really want them to have it?
[1] we're not in the free-money era any more, and pretty much everyone seems to be tightening their belts.
[1] we're not in the free-money era any more, and pretty much everyone seems to be tightening their belts.
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The orange traitor is not pro-Google, but he's absolutely pro-bribery. Google would only have to drop a couple million on one of his endeavours and will get whatever they want.
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Pretty much every modern OS uses the system supplied render engine to display help files. So to drop all of this would break every single program that uses the render engine.
Also security would be worse as now you have to rely on multiple vendors for the render engine. So instead of one code base to worry about, you may have like 20 and 19 of them are not in your control
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Trump isn't friendly to Big Tech either, so he might keep this going from his pro-vendetta stance (even if he is pro-monopoly).
Of course, at that point, the likelihood of any of the remediations being at all helpful to the American public goes way down.
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the only way that the Google Chrome browser represents American "technological leadership" is in its ability to surveil users. not much to be proud of. this is a bit of an odd response to issues related to search, but i'll take it: any hit on google is a good day for me.
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Default apps have an obvious advantage, but Chrome is also the most popular browser on devices where it's not included as the default, and the opportunity cost to switch browsers is functionally zero.
The fact is Chrome has the winning combination of name recognition and being good enough for most people.
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First a caveat so people don't get snippy as they so often do in internet comments. This comment is not saying it isn't possible or it shouldn't be done, it is just to point out how novel the situation this is.
This is going to be really interesting considering the things they want Google to divest are already, at least in part, open source.
Chromium, the core of chrome, is open source. Google could "sell it off" but still be the primary contributor.
I wonder if some of their calculus here acknowledges that these product being open source has lead to a lot of innovation in the respective spaces.
This is going to be really interesting considering the things they want Google to divest are already, at least in part, open source.
Sold as a bundle... Android isn't sold. At least not in the traditional sense. Money does not change hands. It is open source.
Chromium, the core of chrome, is open source. Google could "sell it off" but still be the primary contributor.
I wonder if some of their calculus here acknowledges that these product being open source has lead to a lot of innovation in the respective spaces.
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It night be smarter to force Google to sell off YouTube then? Also, stipulate that Google sites must all follow strict web-standards, which would cut some of the air-supply for "works best on" gaming, and would also discourage stupid crap like AMP.
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Honestly, the best thing would be to spin Chrome off into a nonprofit foundation, with a board of representatives from the various tech companies that are utilizing the Chromium architecture. At this point, Chrome is that vital to the core of the open web. Ideally, they'd be kept alive by donations from those same companies.
While I'm dreaming, I want a pony.
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Not to defend Google, but isn't the App Store bundling even worse for iOS? I don't understand the reasoning behind that part of the plan unless they are going to go after Apple at the same time.
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And also being shoved down people's throats via Google properties and bundled with third-party software installs. Which is as good a reason as any to split Chrome off from Google.
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Chrome is not the problem. Chrome is not even a symptom.
The problem is that the world's largest search engine is also the world's largest ad distributor.
Chopping off tentacles like Android or Chrome does nothing to slay the two-headed beast.
The problem is that the world's largest search engine is also the world's largest ad distributor.
Chopping off tentacles like Android or Chrome does nothing to slay the two-headed beast.
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As discussed in every previous thread about this, it all comes down to the actual business model in question. Apple cannot exert undue influence over vendors who use iOS because it does not license the usage of iOS.
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My workplace switched us from Chrome to Edge as the default browser a couple of years ago so it's been my daily driver at work. I can confidently say that Chrome is Chrome in a clown suit. Edge is Chrome in business casual at least, if not an actual suit.
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Have you seen the faces people make when they open a link and Microsoft EDGE opens instead. No its much higher than 61% maybe the others are Apple users and only use Safari.
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Technically, they could split off the branded browsers while keeping an unbranded embedded HTML engine that's only callable from the OS.
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Decent start.
Chrome does such an insane amount of data collection for the google algorithm and does so much to suck people into the google ecosystem and staying in it that taking chrome away from them can help to hobble their monopolistic strategies.
However, it's just a start. The DOJ needs to continue with the other proposals like decoupling google from android, preventing default deals, etc. Really cutting off all the tentacles of this huge monopoly.
If they could even go as far as completely separating google search from alphabet entirely, that would be a huge step to leveling the playing field.
Keep up the pressure on google, DOJ. Don't stop.
Chrome does such an insane amount of data collection for the google algorithm and does so much to suck people into the google ecosystem and staying in it that taking chrome away from them can help to hobble their monopolistic strategies.
However, it's just a start. The DOJ needs to continue with the other proposals like decoupling google from android, preventing default deals, etc. Really cutting off all the tentacles of this huge monopoly.
If they could even go as far as completely separating google search from alphabet entirely, that would be a huge step to leveling the playing field.
Keep up the pressure on google, DOJ. Don't stop.
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I guarantee you they would never think of breaking up big business as a remedy. The only thing Trump's DoJ will pursue as a remedy is some horseshit "promote conservative things due to cEnSoRsHiP" or something like that.
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Trump and his cronies will loot the government so they can give tax breaks to the rich and corporations. They will make us all pay for it. So big monopolies like Google have nothing to fear.
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We had the starts of that in the Biden administration, and we could have continued that. But some people thought Trump would be better for Palestine.
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I'm so onboard with this. If you asked me 6 years ago I would have been opposed to it but the behavior of Google over the last 10 years has pretty radically changed to the point I don't want anything of their services or apps to be a monopoly.
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And how much of that is because of things like Google pushing Chrome? Or because of Microsoft doing the same thing back in the day?
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