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DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

• pjmlp 2y ago
  And thus confirming the whole point about Chrome being the new IE discussion from yesterday.
• HL33tibCe7 2y ago
  This is terrible news for the web
  • Sabinus 2y ago
    Why?
• shepherdjerred 2y ago
  I would much rather Google be forced to fund alternative browsers (other than Firefox)
• blazinDC 2y ago
  It’ll be bought by a Chinese company, and then what?
• talldayo 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/PPGGV https://archive.ph/PPGGV
• cerebra 2y ago
  This...doesn't seem like a good idea.
  • genericone 2y ago
    Yeah, especially if this breaks Chrome Remote Desktop in any way, seems like that capability would be tied into the Google ecosystem... I wonder how long we will have to say goodbye to the simplest remote desktop that has ever existed.
    • mikepurvis 2y ago
      If getting more open protocols/APIs for that kind of thing is a consequence of this then I’ll take it. Next please make Apple open up all the secret integration between iOS and Watch so that Fitbit and others can more fairly compete.
  • steego 2y ago
    Not to be dramatic, but from a security perspective, it feels a little like the scene in Ghost Busters where the EPA inspector orders a Con Ed worker to shut down the containment system. I'm trying to imagine all the operational implications and this particular suggestion feels hasty. I'm open to hearing different opinions.
    • mattigames 2y ago
      Buying the browser should come with most of the engineers that actively work on it, or at least the ones with most experience working on it, maybe even give them a tiny part of the shares of whatever company gets to own it, or perhaps with a contract for at least for a couple of years (and then could return to Google or whatever), and if possible include some incentives to make them focus on working on security bugs over new features, which tbh I think there is just too many every year.
      • cmeacham98 2y ago
        > Buying the browser should come with most of the engineers that actively work on it The 13th Amendment to the US constitution makes the sale of people illegal. Seriously though - how would this ever work? Google cannot negociate on behalf of their employees or promise they will work somewhere if Google stops employing them.
        • throwawaythekey 2y ago
          Companies regularly buy and sell parts of themselves. I think the standard approach would be for Chrome employees to be given golden handcuffs of some sort.
        • bsimpson 2y ago
          I don't like it either, but it doesn't seem unprecedented. Companies sell units to each other (complete with staff) all the time. I'm pretty sure everyone who worked at Universal Studios still worked there after Comcast bought them. I don't recall any staff being included when Google sold Domains to Squarespace, but they very well could have been. Hell, if you've ever temped in tech, sometimes you wake up and find out you work for a different agency. "Yesterday you worked at Magnit. Today you work at TechPro." Or it could be something in between - the buyer offers you a new contract and the seller says you'll be laid off if you don't take it.
  • dnissley 2y ago
    The revenue and profitability of "the Chrome Company" is going to be far less than Google, since Google's rising tide is what lifted that particular boat. How would the Chrome Company deal with this? Would they do closed source development going forward, no more free lunch for other browsers or shells using Chrome as an engine? How much of a hit does this mean for employees salaries? They are currently making Google money, and now they're about to make Microsoft money. How many would just be flat out laid off due to a lack of revenue, at least in the short term? Would it be a 50% lay off? Into a job market that's already bad?
    • throwawaythekey 2y ago
      Firefox makes hundred of millions of dollars in revenue per year. If you assume the same revenue per user and apply it to Chrome's market size (about 30x that of firefox) then you have a top 20(?) tech company in revenue terms. They will have more money than they know what to do with. But yes, going closed source does seem more likely.
      • sidibe 2y ago
        Isn't firefox mostly making its money from Google? They'll be struggling too if Google gets out of the browser business and no longer feels the pressure to sustain them
        • ric2b 2y ago
          Google doesn't fund Mozilla because it is in the browser market, it does it so it can keep the search engine dominance. Google also pays Apple for the same reason. Now it would probably be paying the Chrome company as well.
  • everdrive 2y ago
    Why would it be a bad idea?
• rvz 2y ago
  That really does not come as a surprise and that was totally expected. [0] As soon as Chrome started to become more of a platform (for their extension API) with many other companies using it in their own browsers, it tells you why they had >90% of the search market for years. This is what the folks at Google have all feared and why they started to run away from the company, spurring up 'Google' competitors (including Microsoft & OpenAI) all bringing it down. Google will appeal and fight back and either way will survive. But we have given Sundar enough time to turn it around and it's time for him to leave and a wartime CEO to step up. It's possible as Sataya Nadella did this for Microsoft. Google needs to do the same. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37116034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37116034
  • okdood64 2y ago
    Who would buy Chrome and why would they buy it? And why would they be trusted to not do something nefarious?
    • the_mitsuhiko 2y ago
      Anyone with a search engine or equivalent product to sell that is not a monopoly.
    • teg4n_ 2y ago
      I’m guessing Meta would like to buy it. Probably for nefarious data sucking reasons tho
  • incognito124 2y ago
    You really like making predictions about the future
    • rvz 2y ago
      Yes I do. Usually they turn out to be true. [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-search-remedies-doj.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/technology/google-search-...
• curiouscat321 2y ago
  Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power. Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.
  • bityard 2y ago
    In the most chaotic alternate reality possible: Mozilla
    • JadoJodo 2y ago
      In that same alternate reality: WPEngine is given control of Automattic/WordPress as a result of the lawsuits.
      • ipaddr 2y ago
        Firefox is sponsored primary by Google. WPEngine is not. It would be like Automattic giving control to Wordpress foundation.
        • JadoJodo 2y ago
          My intention was to emphasize the irony, not so much the relationship between them. :)
    • micahdeath 2y ago
      na... Oracle.
      • Narishma 2y ago
        Broadcom.
    • JoshTriplett 2y ago
      Having it owned by a non-profit foundation would make a huge amount of sense, especially if that foundation was then immediately funded by a variety of companies rather than just one big advertising company. The obvious test for whether the browser is actually independent: what is the response to "let's add an ad-blocker by default".
• bilal4hmed 2y ago
  This seems like the best case scenario for them.....losing Android would have been a far bigger problem
• glzone1 2y ago
  Maybe one of the big spyware players will buy chrome
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • Applejinx 2y ago
    Dang it, I think we missed a chance for it to be bought by the Onion
  • blibble 2y ago
    Microsoft?
• mindslight 2y ago
  Facepalm. So I guess this weak cookie cutter approach is what we get for the high water mark of opposition before the imminent corporate coup against constitutionally limited government. Splitting the surveillance giants into different vertical markets makes no sense at all, and this particular division illustrates it well. We might have had a chance if government, two decades ago, had worked towards creating new specific types of regulations that reflected what competition in the digital realm actually requires - for example prohibiting this now widespread bundling of proprietary client software with hosted services, by mandating that hosted services must only be offered through published APIs. Instead we got some token opposition of "selling off" (checks notes) a web browser that's ultimately "open source".
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  Outstanding news!
• milesward 2y ago
  "make" Mozilla buy it, give em a heaping grant from the Library of Congress to keep the open web open, and be the engine behind every browser keeping things fair... sounds good to me!
  • okdood64 2y ago
    Are they being forced to sell Chromium? How would that work?
    • JadoJodo 2y ago
      That’s what the article for this thread is about…
      • positr0n 2y ago
        No the article is about Chrome, not Chromium
        • JadoJodo 2y ago
          But Google also effectively owns that, right? Or was that your question
          • positr0n 2y ago
            Chromium is open source and forkable, so it makes a huge difference in these types of discussions that involve control of the codebase.
  • afavour 2y ago
    In this scenario I’d much rather that heaping grant goes to a newly independent Chromium nonprofit org. Browser engine diversity is a good thing and worth trying to preserve.
    • NewJazz 2y ago
• exabrial 2y ago
  Chrome??? Dude. THAT plus: * Android * Search * Advertising * YouTube Smash it into tiny pieces. Then the same for Apple and Facebook. We've been stalled for technological progress for 15+ years. Tear down the giants holding us back.
  • bilal4hmed 2y ago
    Apple will never be broken. Most of these folks use Apple and see it as the good guy versus Google, plus it would impact their daily lives. Also once they see the mess separating Google would do, theyd leave apple in tact
  • azinman2 2y ago
    How is Google holding back android or YouTube?
  • DimuP 2y ago
    Do that in a simulator and see how the world starts to tear apart
    • exabrial 2y ago
      I love every moment of it.
• elmerfud 2y ago
  So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different. Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to leverage what you do is already there. The dynamic here is fundamentally different than many other monopolies of the past due to this fact. It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because they feel there is no other viable option to offer a similar experience or is it because they choose that because it feels to them to be the best choice to make in a free market.
  • hinkley 2y ago
    Isn’t Google refusing to make changes that boost online privacy because it’ll tank their ad revenue?
    • elmerfud 2y ago
      But I don't see how that equates to a monopoly. They certainly have the ability to direct their development of their product in the way that they want. Since the core foundation of their product is open and available to every other competing browser they could implement better privacy protections while still leveraging all of the other benefits of Chrome. If the edge browser was so much better and much better privacy wise or the kiwi browser or any of the others the internet can move fairly quickly from one choice to another when that choice is better. For all the downsides that Chrome has I don't see anything that fits the term better for my use case. I'm also guessing that most other users also haven't found anything "better"
      • freeone3000 2y ago
        It’s horizontal tying. If Chrome was not owned by an ad company, the owners of chrome would push for instead of against privacy protections (see: firefox, safari). The browser monopoly, which Chrome sells at a loss, enables the ad company. This is the problem. Chromium does not get features Chrome does not need from Google. So anything against ads does not get upstreamed to Chromium. Chrome also is a major browser vendor, whereas kiwibrowser and opera are not, which means the standards boards listen to them more. If those seats were not owned by an ad company, standards would likely be different.
• andrewflnr 2y ago
  What would that even mean? Chrome doesn't make money. Who would buy it, except maybe someone who plans to do something even more nefarious?
  • kittikitti 2y ago
    Chrome makes enormous sums of money through ads. Also, these companies pay fortunes for default settings like search engines and other backroom deals. Someone could buy Chrome and ask Microsoft for 30% of Bing's search revenue to be the default search engine and Microsoft would agree.
    • wildrhythms 2y ago
      What ads does Chrome make money from?
    • richard_fey2 2y ago
      This makes sense, but it is made even more nonsensical by the fact that the DOJ is also separately saying traffic aquisition deals are anticompetitive as well.
    • andrewflnr 2y ago
      Google makes money from ads by having control of Chrome. I don't see how that would continue if it's spun out. I'm not aware of any ads in Chrome itself (but I've been using FF for years, so what do I know). And Chrome controlling the default search engine is exactly why they want it spun out from Google, so if the result was simply that it makes money by defaulting to a different search engine, that would be an absurd, pointless result.
      • wmf 2y ago
        Imagine if Google isn't allowed to pay Chrome Inc for traffic acquisition so Chrome changes the default search engine to Bing and now Bing is a monopoly because 90% of browsers default to Bing.
• justahuman74 2y ago
  What is the actual asset to buy precisely? The code is already mostly open. You'd be paying for a user base who could leave at any moment?
  • detourdog 2y ago
    If that hadn't forked WebKit DOJ would have to prove collusion instead.
  • eviks 2y ago
    Users could switch from Google search at any moment, would you say search is not an actual asset to buy?
    • aurareturn 2y ago
      They can already do that. Chrome is funded by Google search. Why would anyone buy it without Google search?
      • eviks 2y ago
        Yes, they can, so it's not an asset??? The answer to your question is simple - because you can get funded by Google to keep its search the default
        • aurareturn 2y ago
          But as many have said repeatedly here, people use Chrome BECAUSE it has Google's integrations. They choose to use Chrome because of Google. So why would anyone buy Chrome that is devoid of anything Google? Further more, why would Google pay money to Chrome's buyer if they can simply spin up another browser used open source Chromium (which Google maintains), and start marketing that?
          • eviks 2y ago
            On the main topic: do you see the the ability to leave does not not an asset make? The other things are also simple: Saying things repeatedly doesn't make them universally true. You don't need to buy anything, it can continue to be free, why did you make it up??? Google would pay because they can't make another leader overnight. Also they might be banned from doing so.
• dyauspitr 2y ago
  Why? What a stupid move. It’s like actively working to drive our largest corporations into the ground so China can replace it with some bullshit.
  • bsaul 2y ago
    I think on the contrary, that the number of brilliant people being paid for doing nothing at google is what slows US down compared to china. Only monopoles like google can afford to burn so much cash. And that's a clear loss for the economy.
    • phyzix5761 2y ago
      If they're "burning" money how is that a loss for the economy? They're spending the money on something; effectively stimulating the economy.
      • Sabinus 2y ago
        If the work you're doing isn't valuable then eventually economic reality will hit, the money will run out and the businesses from China that are actually disciplined and productive will take your market share.
    • red_dragon 2y ago
      > number of brilliant people being paid for doing nothing at google is what slows US down compared to china Ever read the Transformer paper? Or AlphaGo? You know that two of this year's nobel laureates are from Google? A few years ago the Turing award was won by a Googler?
• okdood64 2y ago
  So who would set the price in this? If Google just sets something moderately absurd then what?
  • LordKeren 2y ago
    That’s what they mean by “force” - if this does happen, the government will have a hand in the behind-closed-door negotiations with potential buyers. Company forced to sell cannot simply set an absurd price to evade regulators, as that would be plainly acting in bad faith
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• fooker 2y ago
  Something like YouTube would have been a much better idea.
• Spivak 2y ago
  Weird that this is so doom and gloom, the world's most popular browser decoupled from the ad machine. What's not to love? People champion Firefox and Brave constantly and they're independent browsers.
  • oefrha 2y ago
    Brave is not an independent browser, the majority of development comes for free through Chromium, funded by… Google. Firefox by Mozilla Corp survives on loads of cash from… Google. Whoever’s going to pay for the acquisition and the shit ton of ongoing development costs will have to milk it a lot harder than Google (unless the buyer is something like Microsoft, but what’s the point then). A browser alone, especially the type people here champion, is a bad business.
    • Spivak 2y ago
      I think there's an implicit assumption here that Google isn't milking the browser for all it's worth. It isn't as if Google is footing the bill for all those ongoing costs for nothing. I think the argument that Chrome avoids some general badness because Google gets value from a purely strategic interest isn't without merit but even that value is captured eventually. Sure they'll probably sell their default search placement to Google for a pretty penny to sustain development just like Firefox but I consider that a strict improvement over the status quo because Google has less direct power over the new company.
• yesbut 2y ago
  This is just the corporate captured government pretending to do something significant as a performative act for an ignorant public. The DOJ knows this is pointless. The DOJ knows where Google's profits come from. The DOJ is pretending that thr public still thinks about the internet in terms of Microsoft/Internet Explorer bundling. Shame on you DOJ for wasting everyone's time and money.
• azinman2 2y ago
  Browsers are complicated enough that I don’t see how a company could do the right thing without it being subsidized by a larger business. I feel like this is paving the ground for a Chinese startup to come take its place.
  • niutech 2y ago
    How about Servo and Ladybird?
    • azinman2 2y ago
      Servo is dead but Mozilla is subsidized by Google. Ladybird is not a real serious contender but more a hobby project with effectively 0% market share.
      • niutech 2y ago
        Servo is revived: https://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-revival-2023-2024/ https://blogs.igalia.com/mrego/servo-revival-2023-2024/
  • asadotzler 2y ago
    Browsers simply require paying a few hundred very in demand engineers, and that's hardly impossible if Mozilla's been doing it for 20 years as a non-profit. How many software shops out there have 500 engineers? I'm guessing literal hundreds US companies have that today and wouldn't be surprised if someone could build something that scale in a couple years with the proper budget and leadership. But they won't have to build it, they'll just buy a chunk of Google's team with the Chrome trademarks and the chromium infrastructure and then scale back attempts to outpace the few other engine makers by piling on features only useful to an advertising monopoly and instead focus on the core feature set while raking in big bucks selling search and ad distribution to all the search and ad companies not named Google (and perhaps some even from Google too.)
    • azinman2 2y ago
• citizenpaul 2y ago
  A much better decision would have been to require them to fund some amount of the various open source competitors so there can be alternatives. Makes as much sense as forcing them to sell a thing that has no market. "Selling" off chrome is probably not even really possible in any reasonable business way.
  • timbit42 2y ago
    It could be spun off into a separate company, or Microsoft could buy it seeing Edge uses the engine.
    • citizenpaul 2y ago
      >Microsoft could buy it I wish you understood why that is funny.
      • timbit42 2y ago
        Well, it's funny but it's also sad.
• afavour 2y ago
  I don’t really understand how this would work and the article doesn’t really give me enough detail to know. But for me, Google abandoning their plans to disable third party cookies tells me everything I need to know: their ad business calls the shots and an ad company having monopoly over the browser market is an unequivocally bad thing. I just have no idea how we get from here to there. And let’s be real, with Trump re-elected the chance of the DOJ following through with this is very low.
  • techjamie 2y ago
    Somewhere in a possible future, Trump hands Chrome to Elon and he makes X Browser. If this comes true, I take full responsibility for causing it.
  • red_dragon 2y ago
    It is not clear to me how Chrome having a majority share in the browser market is a monopoly. Is it somehow constraining other browsers to not be developed? On the contrary Google maintains the Chromium project, and funds Mozilla directly. I don't think that's what monopolies do, i.e., monopolies don't actively cultivate competitors. If people aren't choosing to use Firefox, Brave, Edge, etc. even though many of the competitors get the benefit of free Google engg labor on Chromium and are not connected to the so-called ad machine, maybe they don't want like the alternatives.
• zb3 2y ago
  Chrome can't really be sold unless it'd mean Google is not allowed to maintain a fork of Chromium. While you can sell access to the existing installations (control over the update url), if Google continues to invest development into a fork (and just drops the information about it on Google frontpage) then that new fork will become defacto Chrome. EDIT: To clarify, the value of Chrome is not only the userbase, but also its placement in Google products and importantly, the development effort on a scale few can afford.
  • NewJazz 2y ago
    I think this would be a very unfair action to perform so late in the administration. Simply because the other two dominant personal computer OS vendors, Microsoft and Apple, will be allowed to maintain their browsers. The less entrenched company and younger company is getting singled out? If they had more time to build cases against the more entrenched Apple and MS, maybe I'd give them some benefit of the doubt. But we can't assume the next administration's antitrust policy will be consistent or even sensible.
• charliebwrites 2y ago
  Plot Twist: Google sells Chrome, then immediately forks Chromium and starts a new “completely unrelated” browser with all the same features called “Magnesium”
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • bongodongobob 2y ago
    I'd be so excited if the did this and named it "Ultron".
  • AnonMO 2y ago
    Google Matte. chrome is out of fashion now.
  • philistine 2y ago
    With those rulings come conditions. Corporations under a judgement under monopoly practices can't do anything they want wily-nily. AT&T, for example, was forbidden from selling computers in 1956. https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust_enforcement.pdf https://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/how_antitrust...
  • peutetre 2y ago
    The actual plot twist will be Google transacts some business with Trump and the problem will be "solved".
• worldmerge 2y ago
  So what would happen to Chromebooks?
  • bsimpson 2y ago
    There was an article from Android Authority today that said it's being rebased on Android.
    • bilal4hmed 2y ago
      https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-3500661/ https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-... this is it ... chromeOS is dead
      • xeonmc 2y ago
        And heralding the year of the Linux Desktop!
• mjevans 2y ago
  Spin off, maybe. Make it something more akin to The Linux Foundation where a consortium of vested interests donate time and resources. This should also include public funds as part of civic infrastructure and national defense funding. BTW, Mozilla really should be in such a bin too.
• lemoncookiechip 2y ago
  I'm very confused. Chrome is just Chromium with Google's own Telemetry. Chromium is open and maintained primarily by Google. Sure, there's a userbase, but you need a business model to take advantage of it in the first place because the benefit was the Telemetry (Google's) and Google's Ecosystem. Also, the article specifically mentions Chrome, NOT Chromium (which again, is open), so what incentive would Google have to maintaining the project without their own version of it? Would they be bared from starting a new one? Would someone else take over Chromium? Who would have the resources to do such a thing other than say Microsoft who currently uses a Chromium browser? Why not just go for the jugular and separate Adsense from the rest of Alphabet? It's the main driving force in all their dark patterns for all other platforms (Youtube, Android, Chrome, Search...)
  • leptons 2y ago
    I'm worried about what happens to the Chrome extension store. If Google sells Chrome, then does that also mean the Chrome store? I guess it would have to. So not only does someone need to buy Chrome, they also have to operate the Chrome store too. I'm not sure this is going to work out well.
  • throw_m239339 2y ago
    Forcing Google to sell their ad business would be the death of that company. After all, it's mostly an ad company...
    • techjamie 2y ago
      They would just have to go back to their original business model before they became an ad company when they ran third-party ads on Google search. Granted, that may not get them enough income at their current scale. They would definitely have to scale back hard for that.
      • Jensson 2y ago
        They wouldn't need to do that, they would just need to sell the third party ads part they can still run their own first party ads on their own domains. Forcing Google to do that would just hurt other websites income, not Google.
• philwelch 2y ago
  Is this really going to happen in the next 62 days?
  • jsnell 2y ago
    No, of course not. The article has the timeline. Hearings in April 2025, decision in August 2025. (Followed by years of appeals, I'm sure.)
    • philwelch 2y ago
      In 62 days we will have a completely different Department of Justice that is unlikely to follow the current administration’s approach to these issues, so I’m surprised that they’re even bothering.
      • jsnell 2y ago
        This has to be the case of the lifetime to anyone at the DOJ that worked on it. Of course they want to see it to the end. And there's no reason to believe that the approach would be different. Like, who exactly in the new administration is a fan of Google? The Republicans have complained for years about a perceived bias. Trump vowed during the campaign that he'd prosecute Google if he won re-election. They'll absolutely continue driving that case, if nothing else to use as leverage to try to force Google into making pro-conservative algorithmic changes.
        • philwelch 2y ago
          My understanding is that this is based on a fairly novel antitrust theory that only exists inside the Biden administration. I expect the new DOJ to attack Google for entirely different reasons. But you might be right.
• phyzix5761 2y ago
  I'm reading this on a non Chrome browser and I can search for it on a non Google search engine. I don't understand where the monopoly is.
  • jmpetroske 2y ago
    You can look up details of the lawsuit, but the idea is that Google paying Apple to be the default search engine prevents other search engines from competing with Google search. The default search selection has been shown to be quite important. Anti-trust law is built around the idea of maintaining competition - “monopolies” aren’t inherently illegal.
    • phyzix5761 2y ago
      Every company does this though. They pay to be the exclusive or official XYZ of some company or event. For example, Bud Light being the official drink of the NFL. Or Coca-Cola being the exclusive drink that can be sold at the Olympics and many other sporting venues.
      • BadHumans 2y ago
        Bud Light has a 9.7% market share. Chrome has a 67% market share. You also missed the entire point of defaults being important.
      • jmpetroske 2y ago
        I’m summarizing, the details of the suit are widely available. Bud lights and coca colas activity isn’t enough to suppress competition. Google’s is, and the U.S. justice system clearly thinks so.
      • asadotzler 2y ago
        Every company isnt a monopoly under antitrust scrutiny.
  • nfw2 2y ago
    I'm reading this on a non-Chrome browser based on Chromium, the project Google gave freely to the world that enables competitors to reach hundreds of millions of users
• daft_pink 2y ago
  Are they going to request this only for Trump to unrequest this?
• moomin 2y ago
  I have no idea how this would work either, but I feel like the election makes this more likely to happen, not less, after the amount of rhetoric that Google needs taking down a peg.
• linuxhansl 2y ago
  Slightly off-topic: I am always baffled with the widespread use of Chrome. On all my machines (including work) I use Firefox. Even on Android I disabled Chrome, so that the feed will have to use Firefox. Chrome is neither faster nor more convenient than Firefox, so it is a bit of a mystery to me - I guess on Android it comes as the default.
  • bongodongobob 2y ago
    To the average person, all the browsers are exactly the same. I use Chrome, Edge, and Firefox at work at its all the same to me as well.
  • asyx 2y ago
    It is mostly better advertising compared to what Mozilla was pulling of, the initial edge in performance (at least that’s what people said), integration with google for the android users (Firefox was late to this) as well as some issues if garbage websites didn’t test on Firefox. Regarding features, things I’d miss include PWA, some APIs like WebUSB that let me flash microcontrollers in the browser and I think WebGPU is still only in Firefox nightly. Most of those things are very specific to what I do. Most people don’t need PWAs. Most people have no need for WebUSB and most applications run on WebGL so that’s mostly an issue for developers. It’s not like Firefox is bad but I think Google just managed to capture the market and now the userbase doesn’t have a good reason to switch to Firefox (most people don’t think about privacy if it’s not in their face. Very few people will have no passcode on their phone. But even less people will think twice before uploading the images of stranger’s kids to Google Drive because they happened to be in the background when you made a photo of your own kids even though google has no reason to respect your privacy).
  • IncreasePosts 2y ago
    Maybe force of habit from years ago when Mozilla was the dominant non-default browser and chrome rolled in and ate their lunch by feeling so much faster.
  • adamc 2y ago
    There are a lot of pages that work better in Chrome than Firefox. I say that as someone who always defaults to Firefox.
• czhu12 2y ago
  Not sure how this works but if some party purchased chrome, isn't the best business for it to sell advertising back to google? And then sell the default search engine back to google?
• gerash 2y ago
  Looking at this case and the recent case against SpaceX (which is required to only hire US permanent residents and citizens) for not hiring asylees, makes me think DOJ which has the bandwidth to only work on few very important cases isn't doing a good job overall.
• iandanforth 2y ago
  They could spin it off and then set up the same kind of pay-for-default-search deal that Mozilla has. This might put just enough distance between the two orgs to satisfy the DOJ without actually changing much.
• sleepybrett 2y ago
  you hate to see it.. no wait. love it.
• xnx 2y ago
  It would be a shame if the DOJ forced this. Google has the resources to continue to pressure Apple to allow non-nerfed Chrome on iOS. That said, this might be my favorite of the DOJ remedies I've heard because it would probably do the least harm.
  • elashri 2y ago
    They had these alleged resources for almost two decades now. Did they manage to force Apple? Or do they give them two digit billions dollars for Google to be the default search engine on safari?
• 1970-01-01 2y ago
  ByteDance has lots of extra cash. I hope DOJ is prepared to stop this from completely backfiring on the public.
  • xvector 2y ago
    I hope the DOJ and American public face the consequences of this incompetent decision.
• legitster 2y ago
  I'm all for competition and increasing consumer choices, but the government is really not making a case that this is supposed to help consumers. The only reason I still use Chrome is because I already use other Google products and they integrate well together. There are many other better options out there otherwise, and they are all free. Breaking out Chrome from Google will not in any way benefit me as a consumer. > The agency and the states have settled on recommending that Google be required to license the results and data from its popular search engine > They are also prepared to seek a requirement that Google share more information with advertisers and give them more control over where their ads appear. It sounds like the end goal of this is to enrich other companies, not customers. And if the DOJ has their way, they want to crack open Google's vault of customer data and propagate it across the internet. Not only does this sound extremely bad for consumers, the DOJ is trying to completely change Google's business model and dictate how they are supposed to make money. Regardless of how you feel about Google, this seems like a far overreach from the DOJ on finding and fixing market manipulation.
  • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > only reason I still use Chrome is because I already use other Google products and they integrate well together This is the point. Google's products integrate with Chrome better than non-Google products. Including its ad platform.
    • jascination 2y ago
      1) does it though? It seems like the Google-specific parts of it are pretty ancillary to the whole experience 2) how is it different to Apples integration with Safari?
      • mplewis9z 2y ago
        > how is it different to Apples integration with Safari? It’s not, other than Google has a way larger market share (especially if you count Edge/Opera/Brave/etc.) and has been (ab)using that position to push web standards in a direction that favors their business and that other browser vendors have to follow to keep up. If Safari had Chrome’s market share and was throwing their weight around like Google does and Microsoft did with IE, it’d be the same argument and I’d also personally support forcing them to divest it.
• ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
  Again, no idea how Google's supposed monopoly of web browsers is worse for the consumer than Apple's actual monopoly on iPhone browsers (they're all Safari under the hood) and on App stores.
  • JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > no idea how Google's supposed monopoly of web browsers is worse for the consumer than Apple's actual monopoly on iPhone browsers (they're all Safari under the hood) and on App stores For the same reason proprietary cables aren't generally a monopoly problem: Apple hasn't been declared a monopoly. Google has [1]. [1] https://apnews.com/article/google-search-antitrust-case-59114d8bf1dc4c8453c08acaa4051f14 https://apnews.com/article/google-search-antitrust-case-5911...
  • pcj-github 2y ago
    ^This. Apple's lock on the mobile market is far worse for consumers. Break off the App Store from Apple, a company that would actually be valuable.
  • elashri 2y ago
    The DOJ is after monopoly in search space (and how Google is using chrome position to strengthen the search monopoly) not the browser space itself (Which is another monopoly but to less extend). People don't look into one product and DOJ are not naive to fall into this trap.
    • ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
      Then pass a law that says all browsers must give a choice of search engine. I'm not sure your right though.
      • elashri 2y ago
        As you might know. DOJ is not able to pass laws for obvious reasons. They do enforce the current laws. Google is free to lobby for such law as they do with other things.
• 4b11b4 2y ago
  This doesn't seem helpful... Yet, Microsoft owning Chrome feels better. They are less incentivized to bake in features related to advertising.
  • BadHumans 2y ago
    Is this sarcasm? Because Windows 11 has a ton of ads and more ads/telemetry are getting added with every update.
    • bryan_w 2y ago
      It's very weird to see that same point brought up multiple times in this thread. It makes me worried that this all was cooked up my M$ all along (A company which doesn't have any antitrust litigation being brought against them despite putting ads in their latest operating system)
• ryukoposting 2y ago
  My bet is that this is just lame-duck flailing, and the case will be dropped by the incoming administration. Alternatively, the Trump admin forces the issue, Google sells off Chrome, and Musk buys it.
• IncreasePosts 2y ago
  What kind of continuity can be expected when the head of the DoJ is a political appointee by the president, and we're getting a new president in 2 months with radically different ideas compared to our current one?
  • tokioyoyo 2y ago
    None, lol.
  • move-on-by 2y ago
    I’m not sure, but per the article it’s a continuation of it’s beginning: > The case was filed under the first Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden.
    • asveikau 2y ago
      Trump is known to change his mind about stuff on a whim or who he talks to most recently, I guess we'll see.
• DCH3416 2y ago
  Stuff like this. It feels like there's less of a case here than with Microsoft. In the 90s, Windows nearly became _the_ OS, especially had Apple folded like it nearly did. There really wasn't an alternative in the emerging home computer space as well as the OEM shenanigans among other things. Threatening to pull office for Mac if Apple failed to include IE. I'm struggling to see how Google is truly behaving monopolistic here. Chrome is available for compile, and is part of other browsers like edge. It's like suggesting linux has a monopoly because almost all web servers run on it.
• gcau 2y ago
  My understanding is that google lets anyone freely use chromium, and chrome is just their flavour of chromium with google services integrated ontop of it. Microsoft took chromium and sprinkled ai-enhanced microsoft flavours on top to make edge, which doesn't look like a monopoly. Presumably, microsoft is able to use windows to push edge, and use edge to push bing. If chrome was sold and had the google integration removed I would switch to a vanilla chromium. I see some argument for google paying firefox to be the default search engine, but is that worse than firefox not existing at all? In terms of search engines, I think there's just a lack of good competition. The search engines I'm aware of are: Google: Just works. The only problem is you need to add "reddit" to most searches to get actual real, human-written non-seospam text, but I doubt that's unique to just google. Bing: I'm greeted with an uncomfortably flashy layout shift, a page full of american news and some popup about AI. They also cover up and censor for the CCP. Kagi: Their website is literally broken right now and I can't even see the pricing or other pages. I tried safari, chrome, firefox and edge, the hamburger menu doesn't open. Ultimately though, nobody except the kind of audience on HN is going to pay for it. If I told anyone else about a search engine that costs $16/month to use, I'm sure they'd think i'm joking, irregardless of how good it may be. Yandex: Good for the reverse image searching, but otherwise probably not good to use. Most of this article is ads, and it's paywalled so I can only read the first couple sentences, so if this is addressed in it I apologise.
  • rand0mx1 2y ago
    Forget to add Brave search.
  • freediver 2y ago
    > Ultimately though, nobody except the kind of audience on HN is going to pay for it. If I told anyone else about a search engine that costs $16/month to use, I'm sure they'd think i'm joking, irregardless of how good it may be. What do you want out of an alternative though - Better search or free? Because you can't have both. Ad-based search being free is exactly the reason it is bad. You get what you pay for?
• bhawks 2y ago
  This feels like a feel good headline for DoJ that doesn't materially impact the Search/Ads ecosystem nor improve things for the end consumer. Chromium exists - literally as a baseline for several other corporations to build a browser. If you wanted to do something meaningful - you must separate search and ads, everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
• jauntywundrkind 2y ago
  This would be outrageously bad for the web. Right now a healthy web ecosystem is Google's existential hedge, against all the closed platforms of the world coming to devour the web and Google's business. Getting rid of Google as a patron for the web would be one of the most harmful damaging & awful things the DOJ could do this world. Strongly opposed, what a godforsaken heinous crime against humanity to consider leaving no one funding the web at scale.
• dismalaf 2y ago
  This is the strangest decision I've ever seen. Chrome isn't the default anywhere except Pixel branded devices (most or all of the Android OEMs have their own browsers) and you need to actually seek out and download Chrome from Google.com. So how will Google selling Chrome lead to less traffic towards Google? It seems the DOJ has cause and effect completely backwards. IF Google is a monopoly that abuses search and ads, IMO it would make much more sense to split it like this: - Google Search - Ads - Consumer facing everything, so Chrome, Android, Pixel devices, Nest, etc... all together - YouTube This kind of split would prevent Google dominating search, abusing their dominance of ads while also enabling their device division to become a proper competitor to Apple and Samsung. Simply splitting off Chrome is weird, kills Chrome for absolutely no reason, does nothing to help consumers and most importantly doesn't prevent Google from dominated search and ads which is the whole point of the suit in the first place... It's also strange that the DOJ is letting Apple, MS and Meta off the hook when those businesses clearly engage in anti-competitive practices.
• dzink 2y ago
  Chrome data may be feeding Search Results based on how long people stay at different pages and where they go. Thus removing Chrome may remove a substantial data advantage for search.
• tamade 2y ago
  How likely will Trump DOJ drop this? Consumers have choice, albeit just a handful of credible options. Nobody is forced to use Chrome (unlike MSFT pushing IE back in the day)
  • concinds 2y ago
    Trumpers in the GOP hate Big Tech too, but their concerns are exclusively about censorship of conservatives (for Google) and domestic manufacturing (for Apple). Market competition is not their framework. Gaetz is in that group, but he's also a moron who doesn't care about policy details. If he's smarter than I think, then expect him to go after Google Search (the alleged source of anti-conservative bias). But if he's as dumb as I think, expect him to support the Chrome breakup, even though it would not advance his goals and wouldn't be coherent antitrust policy, because it would let him claim a "win".
• tgmatt 2y ago
  Maybe this will lead to Chromium finally getting proper vertical tabs which Google clearly otherwise block due to it eating up horizontal real estate that would otherwise be used for ads.
  • AlgebraFox 2y ago
    I assumed this theory long back and I thought I was alone. Now it's great to see someone else has same theory.
• blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  Is this why Google is trying to deprecate Chrome OS and merge it into Android? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42175069 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42175069
• da25 2y ago
  Thinking this through, it’s hard to even imagine how such a selloff and transfer could happen. Chrome, which is built downstream from the open-source Chromium, is a behemoth project with development spanning nearly every domain — rendering, GPU ops, WASM, AI, js engines, web standards, and much more. Sure, Google doesn’t always prioritize developments that don’t align with its ad monopoly. Still, Chrome remains a polished & widely used product. As far as I can see, it would be best to establish a "Chromium Foundation," akin to the Linux Foundation, with emphasis on advancing web standards, unencumbered by corporate priorities. That said, the more entrenched monopoly Google maintains lies in its "Search Experience," integrated with complementary products like Maps, YouTube, Android, and others. I don't see any other viable alternative that serves the needs of most users across the board. Bing doesn’t come close, and while private search engines cater to power users, the average web user rarely switches search engines. For many, Google Search has become the de facto entry point to the internet and their view of the Web.
• DimuP 2y ago
  A single attempt to separate google and chrome (with all its products) would make the eco-system pointless and swipe away google entirely from the global market. why not to give Youtube instead tho? (even if the revenue/monetization of every single channel would be heavily impacted) Android and chrome are necessary for google to live, so Youtube or something else would be better
  • alsetmusic 2y ago
    The point is not to do what is good for Google. The point is to do what is good for users and the market. Separating Chrome from Google's despotic plans such as AMP and blocking ad-blockers so that the browser is independent from their attempts to further control the web would be a good thing.
• BadHumans 2y ago
  I can think of other ways to break up Google that don't involve selling Chrome. I'm not sure I understand how selling Chrome would weaken Google.
  • timbit42 2y ago
    They're trying to weaken the links between Google Ads and their other products.
• tssva 2y ago
  Google as Microsoft did years ago will stall until a new administration is in office and reach a settlement for what is effectively a slap on the wrist.
• nojvek 2y ago
  Trump DOJ is gonna be very friendly to PAC donations. 100% bet, Trump gonna be easy on corporations that kiss his butt.
  • flanked-evergl 2y ago
    Whatever it takes to stop nonesense like this.
• Chatting 2y ago
  This absolutely needs to happen. The main problem is that, thanks to Chrome's massive market share, Google is in a position where they can effectively dictate the future of the Web as a platform. We've already seen a few instances of this: Manifest v3 and FLoC/Privacy Sandbox, for example, were met with widespread opposition, but eventually they made their way into Chrome; WEI, on the other hand, was withdrawn due to backlash, but make no mistake, it will come back at some point. The current state of Web standards can be summed up as: whatever Chrome does is the standard. The other browsers have to follow along, either because their modest market share doesn't afford them the luxury to be incompatible with Chrome, or because they're based on Chromium, so they hardly have a choice. The only exception is Apple, but let's be honest, they only do so because of their own business interests. Ideally, Chrome/Chromium should be spun off as an independent non-profit foundation set up to act in the public interest. Obviously there would be trade-offs: a slower development cycle, new features taking longer to be shipped, etc. But in my opinion that's far preferrable to having Google continue to exert this level of control over the Web. Unfortunately, the current administration has two months left in its term, so it's not going to happen.
  • big-green-man 2y ago
    The incoming administration has a bone to pick with these tech companies, so I expect these endeavors to continue to fruition.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• mark_l_watson 2y ago
  This is so stupid. I am a fan of the books Privacy is Power and The Tech Coup, both books do a great job arguing for privacy and mitigating the harm of tech giants. What should be done is having strong privacy laws, requirements for encrypting user data, 100% transparency on how user data is sold (require all buyer and seller information to be public), prohibiting sale of user data in most cases, super fine control privacy and security settings. Google already does a good job on some of these things, and they and other tech giants need to be fenced in by strong privacy and user rights laws. Corporations are good at still making profits when they have to follow laws that are inconvenient to them. If members of the US Congress were prohibited by law from stock trading, that might help clean up the logjams preventing better laws.
• md_rumpf 2y ago
  perplexity's valuation just doubled!
• ecmascript 2y ago
  The ideal solution would be if they sell Chrome to a player like Shopify would buy it that actually makes money in a traditional sense.
• sandGorgon 2y ago
  I dont think anyone has pointed this out - Apple and Google have long fought against improvements in mobile browsers. Specifically because they threaten the app store monopoly. Push notifications in PWA was one of the big big ones. Apple blocked it for years and years.
• ConcernedCoder 2y ago
  The DOJ are apparently idiots that do not understand tech, let alone anti-trust or monopolies... for instance: I create a useful device that consumers love and use, I sell ads on the device to anyone who will pay, in fact I auction them to the highest bidder... DOJ: you are a monopoly and must sell the device... wtf?
• einpoklum 2y ago
  Wow, what a world! Next they might make Microsoft sell of the army of evil monkeys that they got when they bought evil from Satan: https://www.bbspot.com/2000/05/04/linux-kernel-delayed-by-microsofts-army-of-evil-monkeys/ https://www.bbspot.com/2000/05/04/linux-kernel-delayed-by-mi... (yes, that's 24-year-old humor, sorry.)
• FergusArgyll 2y ago
  Thank goodness the era of ridiculous anti-trust is coming to an end. Every "normie" knows about edge, it comes with your new Windows. no one uses it, people know quality when they see it and everyone prefers chrome. If there was a better browser we'd use it. The default should definitely be: Companies should be incentivized to create great products. If the incentives include, get 90% market share, that's great! No one would put it the amount of work Google has if the incentives were small
• wesselbindt 2y ago
  I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.
  • eru 2y ago
    How is Chrome or Google a monopoly?
    • rvense 2y ago
      Monopoly is probably not the right word. "Trust" (as in "anti-trust") is maybe better, but I'm not sure the last gilded age really had a perfect analogy to what's been happening in the tech services sector. The problem is these sprawling companies who make so many interrelated services and can suppress competition in one area (browsers, e-mail, video-over-the-internet) due to extreme profits in another area (ads).
    • nicoloren 2y ago
      I think we can think in terms of market share. Google (the search engine) has a market share of over 85% worldwide. [0] Google therefore controls what can be found on the Internet for 85% of search engine users. Recent updates, or Core Updates, have demonstrated how easy it is for Google to put businesses out of business by removing their visibility. [1] It seems to me that this is a problem. Ditto for Chrome, which has +60% market share [2]. A failed or deliberate update could make a website inaccessible to 60% of the population. [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share [1] https://retrododo.com/google-is-killing-retro-dodo/ https://retrododo.com/google-is-killing-retro-dodo/ [2] https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
      • eru 2y ago
        60% market share is big, but it's not a monopoly. Even 85% ain't.
        • 2y ago
• yowayb 2y ago
  I haven't read the article but I immediately see a few comments about benefitting consumers. I don't think that's the DOJ's charter. I think when you consider all the things that Google is to the government and to the people, this decision makes sense. It's weird that it becomes a discussion about what consumers want.
  • whiplash451 2y ago
    True, but that might be the way for the DOJ to win legally.
• yonisto 2y ago
  Serious question: sell it to who? how the new owner will make money out of it?
  • niutech 2y ago
    Maybe Opera? They have profit from providing a web browser: https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-details/opera-reports-fourth-quarter-ahead-expectations-concluding-year/ https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...
    • AlienRobot 2y ago
      If it's sold to Opera I'll stop using it. Old Opera was good, and the people who made it are now making Vivaldi. New Opera promotes cryptocurrencies. :-(
• jeswin 2y ago
  I'm totally fine with this, but I wish they would do the same thing with Apple. Google's platform, at the very least is open and I can run my own apps. One could ask, "How is Apple a Monopoly, and do they abuse that position?". In my view it is, since you can't have a business or build connected hardware without an iOS app. And as for abusing that position for gaining market share, there are just too many examples starting with say, watches.
  • hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
    The App Store is one consideration, and the hardware ecosystem another. I personally think both are problems. The ability to cast audio from my device to another is less supported now than they were back when things had audio auxiliary jacks.
    • pcl 2y ago
      How so? Because you need to buy a converter cable? That sounds like “marginally more expensive”, and certainly not a monopoly-abusing position.
      • hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
        Apple today discontinued the lightning to 3.5mm converters, but I’m more referring to things like the apple exclusive airplay, proprietary Bluetooth codecs, etc
  • bigs 2y ago
    Google abuses privacy in every product they own via their monopoly over the ad ecosystem. Very different to Apple.
  • ThePhysicist 2y ago
    Apple doesn't have a similar position in any space though, or do they? In terms of market share they're not even the biggest player in the smartphone market, they sit below 20 % (the most profitable 20 % though). Google, in comparison, absolutely dominates the search and ad markets and sucks all oxygen out of them to keep any competition from springing up by controlling distribution and limiting choice. They e.g. paid vast amounts of money to Apple to make sure users don't get a free choice of search engine. If you wanted to compare the Apple Watch with this it would mean that Apple would make exclusive deals with all stores (online and IRL) selling watches so that consumers would only see Apple watches everywhere they go and would need to look in the basement or on an obscure subpage to find any watches from a different manufacturer. Clearly that's not the case. That said I'm not a fan of Apples walled garden either, I think this should be addressed (and in the EU it is being addressed). It's ridiculous to have this super powerful hardware and I can only run sanctioned apps on them instead of being able to install any kind of software I like.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• melodyogonna 2y ago
  Why does Google have to sell Chrome? Any potential acquirer could build their own browser with Chromium.
  • kernal 2y ago
    The DOJ is technically illiterate if they think Google selling Chrome is the solution. If Google was forced to divest itself from Chrome, I see no need for Google to keep Chromium open source.
• dbg31415 2y ago
  Maybe they are just totally incompetent.
• doc_manhat 2y ago
  ITT: panicked Google employees try to convince you this is a very bad thing
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• meindnoch 2y ago
  Google needs to be punished for what they did to the web.
  • tobyhinloopen 2y ago
    ChatGPT / OpenAI is next in line to revolutionize and ruin the web.
  • seydor 2y ago
    Arguably the web is still in better position than the app store and the android store. Google's effect on the web is mixed at best, positive overall.
• tobyhinloopen 2y ago
  [flagged]
• seydor 2y ago
  Antimonopoly action is good for the market, but let's be honest nobody will make a better chrome, at best they will inject ads or turn it to a walled garden. It will be a bad thing in the end for us web developers , and we will lose the last open platform. Why is this considered a good move anyway? The obvious way to split google is to separate the buy side from the sell side of ads market
  • Tepix 2y ago
    I haven't been using Chrome for a while because of the unacceptable privacy issues. "We will lose the last open platform" - umm, have you heard about Mozilla Firefox? It works really well.
    • devnullbrain 2y ago
      In recent years, otherwise proud nerds have become absurdly hostile to the idea that Firefox could function as a daily browser. Yet I often forget which one I'm using until I look at the shape of the tabs.
• cue_the_strings 2y ago
  In this thread: Chrome and Chrome-related employees of Google worrying about their future compensation under a smaller company. Don't worry, I'm sure that Chrome / Chromium will be picked up by several big players together, Microsoft is involved via Edge, ... I don't see much changing. I think that government should limit its interference in the market as much as possible, but Chrome is just so monopoly-oriented from the get go, it's no wonder it will deservedly get split off. Also, look from the bright side, multiple large players have it in their interest to keep Chrome / Chromium alive, so it will survive the death of Google and it's main ads business.
  • kernal 2y ago
    The sale wouldn't involve Chromium nor the Google employees that work on Chromium or Chrome. But good luck to whoever buys it to keep funding it and acquire the talent to work on it at the speed Google does. Meanwhile, Chromium will go closed source as there's no incentive to keep it open and Google will develop a new closed sourced browser to reclaim its market share.
    • cue_the_strings 2y ago
      I would expect them to prevent Google from fielding a browser (any browser, not just Chrome) for some time (several years).
• rqtwteye 2y ago
  I bet the Trump people will stop such an effort immediately
• Sparkyte 2y ago
  This is too complicated Chrome couldn't survive on its own without Google. Chrome is fundamentally a way for users to interface with their products. However it would be better to give regulation to Goolge about information handling.
• jfoster 2y ago
  I wonder what the bounds of this would be. Most people still think of Chrome as just a browser, but there is quite a bit of other stuff: Chrome Web Store ChromeOS Chromebook (somewhat intertwined with Android) Chromecast (discontinued, sort of; succeeded by Google TV Streamer) Web.dev (not Chrome branded, but probably wouldn't exist if Google didn't start Chrome) Also, I have to wonder, if breaking off Chrome makes sense to the DOJ, does breaking off Android also make sense? Is that the next piece that they will propose?
• SpEd3Y 2y ago
  Arguably out of the big 4 (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon) Google gave the most back to humanity: Android, Chromium, Kubernetes, Google Office suite, the Go programming language, Tensor Flow, Alpha Fold (and Google DeepMind), donating to Linux, etc. All these are things everyone has access to precisely because Google is such a big player and can afford to lose money on innovation that fails. What did Microsoft and Apple gave us? Yet Google gets targeted while Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are left alone. Why is that?
  • sebstefan 2y ago
    "Your honor, I made a bunch of cool stuff, anti-trust should apply to me last!" That's obviously not how it works
    • SpEd3Y 2y ago
      You're missing my point. In a perfect competition environment all profits go to 0. This is great for customers horrible for innovation. Innovation happens when there's enough capital to take huge risks and lose. Google had a ton of innovation attempts that flopped really hard and lost ton of money. Without the extra capital none of the attempts would have happened.
      • shakna 2y ago
        I'm not sure I agree with you on innovation. One of the largest drivers of innovation, historically, has been war and desperation. In those circumstances, you generally can't afford to lose. So the idea of innovation needing the comfort of a soft landing doesn't really seem to fit reality.
        • SpEd3Y 2y ago
          I agree that war pushes innovation the most, but I assume you don't want humanity to be in constant state of war. So how do you get innovation in peace time? I would argue if you're in a very competitive market and you're margins are 1-2% you cannot afford to go for innovation. Bell Labs which arguably is one of the most innovative places in peace time was the result of the AT&T monopoly. Most innovation comes out of monopolies or excess capital in peace time.
• jfoster 2y ago
  It feels odd to me that this was the first proposal from the DOJ, considering that the case initially seemed quite focused on the advertising side of Google's business: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2023)&oldid=1250335154#Opening_arguments https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_v._...
  • jsnell 2y ago
    That is a different case, this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...
    • jfoster 2y ago
      Wow, thanks for the correction. Interesting that there's more than one monopoly US vs Google case.
• adamtaylor_13 2y ago
  This is exactly the blunt, hammer-based solution I would expect from a bunch of crusty bureaucrats. It seems none of them bothered to read Kagi’s outstanding suggestions on the topic. [1] 1: https://blog.kagi.com/dawn-new-era-search https://blog.kagi.com/dawn-new-era-search
  • tr3ntg 2y ago
    Decided to give this a read. Kagi’s argument is simple: Google should give public access to their Search Index so that any company can take advantage of the core machine directly, under some terms of agreement. Like an API.
• ulrikrasmussen 2y ago
  Finally! My only concern is that this should have been done much sooner, in particular before the recent anti-trust ruling that basically forced Google's hands to pull the rug under Mozilla. Google's sole business is to make people look at content they don't want to look at (ads), and I find it deeply problematic that they not only control the operating system and software distribution platform for a large fraction of devices, but now also the browser and by extension the standards of what used to be the open web.
• Havoc 2y ago
  They all seem to have gotten rather cozy. eg Just spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out why links in outlook open in edge even if browser is set to chrome. Microsoft chose to just ignore what browser you select (in their OS). It’s just so blatantly monopolistic behaviour
• foxbee 2y ago
  I believe they'll settle on splitting out Youtube - which I believe makes perfect sense and from a rev/valuation perspective, would be a top 20 company.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• nzach 2y ago
  If your goal is to reduce the influence Google has on the browser market is this really the best move? From a practical standpoint I find it hard to believe. While I agree that monopolies era bad for consumers and that the position Chrome currently have is pretty much a monopoly I don't think this particular move would be good for consumers in the short and mid time-frame. Maybe in the long run this is the correct decision, but this will cause quite a lot of pain for quite a lot of time. I think one of the ways this could backfire against the users is that removing Chrome from Google will create a 'power vacuum' in the web standards. Currently Chrome is this de facto standard, for better of for worse. Removing that can create a situation where we have a couple of competing standards. In my opinion the problem with this kind of competition is that making browsers will become significantly harder, because now instead of just copying Chrome you will have to implement several standards. And this is why I expect the web experience to become significantly worse in the short term. And you know what will happen when the web experience degrades? Every company will push their own app. And even more experiences/services will be locked behind an android/ios app with the excuse "we want to deliver a great experience to our users". And this is WAY worse for users than the monopoly Google has in the browser. Maybe a better solution would be for the US government to create/adopt a web standard and create a rule that says "if you want to sell to the US government you need to be fully compliant with standard XYZ". This way you create a goal that everyone can work towards. As far as I know this is how the government handle this situation in the medical sector, where they have HL7 to create the relevant standards. And I'm fully aware that this brings a lot of problems to the table. The first one is that definition of standards for the web will become a political topic, and this is never a good sign. However, I think this is really the only option if we want the web to be a place with fair competition.
• gigatexal 2y ago
  I thought Trump could be bought off to make this go away like he flipped on the til too forced sale of ban. But this whole thing began under his last administration (sic): “If Mehta accepts the proposals, they have the potential to reshape the online search market and the burgeoning AI industry. The case was filed under the first Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden. It marks the most aggressive effort to rein in a technology company since Washington unsuccessfully sought to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago.” The thing is chrome isn’t as sticky or important as the ads marketplace. Google would be wise to let chrome go and hold on to the cash cow that is the ads marketplace where they make most of their money.
  • gigatexal 2y ago
    s/til too/tiktok
• rkharsan64 2y ago
  People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome: - When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.) - They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because they own Chrome. [1] - They get to move forward with enabling and pushing features that allow for more advertising: see Manifest v3, FLoC. - Google specifically serves a worse version of Search on Firefox for Mobile. You have to get an extension to get the full experience. This isn't an isolated attempt. You can see more of the same thing with Android. - AOSP (the open source counterpart of Android) is now unusable. It doesn't ship with most essential apps, including a Phone app. In previous versions of Android, all of these were a part of AOSP. - Most third party launchers/stores struggle to implement features because they are only available for Google themselves. - The signing in with Google thing from above continues here too: you sign in to Google system-wide. [1]: https://x.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018 https://x.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018
  • jansan 2y ago
    I sincerely doubt that forcing Google to spin off Chrome is the only or best solution for this.
    • simiones 2y ago
      What other solution do you have in mind? Legislation about architecture decisions taken in software products seems preferable? In principle there is nothing wrong for example with a shared account for multiple products from the same company, many even prefer it. The problem only appears when this gets concentrated into too much power and can be leveraged in ways that distort the market and hurt consumers.
      • nzach 2y ago
        > Legislation about architecture decisions taken in software products seems preferable? To me this option seems more practical. And we already have some precedence for this kind of solution. For aviation we have entities like EASA issuing standards like ED-109 and for healthcare we have the HL7 organization issuing the HL7 standard. Another example in the healthcare industry is the DICOM standard created by the NEMA organization. This is not a new idea. I'm not arguing this approach is without problems. But we are already doing this for some pretty important topics, and I don't see why we couldn't use the same strategy for an "open web standard" that all browsers have to implement.
• postepowanieadm 2y ago
  Taking into account all the noise the EU is making about Internet, privacy, digital laws it's mind-bending that there is no the EU WebBrowser. There is Opera, there are original KHTML/Webkit creators - just use them and make an engine that's not adverts powered.
  • niutech 2y ago
    There are many EU web browsers: https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/113285649386968003 https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/113285649386968003
    • postepowanieadm 2y ago
      Like sponsored and controlled by the EU, the organization.
      • niutech 2y ago
        The EU has funded UR Browser by AdaptiveBee: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/projects-details/31045243/781524/H2020 https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/port...
        • postepowanieadm 2y ago
          7 years ago?
          • niutech 2y ago
            Anyone can apply for EU funds, there were no applications for this time.
• moody__ 2y ago
  A lot of discussion in this thread is pointing out that chromium is a thing and that it would be hard for a company to properly fund a web browser without the backing of a tech giant whose more direct revenue stream is elsewhere. I think this showcases a larger issue with the web as it stands today. Why has building a browser for the "open web" become such a complex piece of software that it requires the graces of a tech giant to even keep pace? Can nothing be done to the web to lower the barrier to entry such that an independent group (a la OpenBSD or similar) can maintain their own? Right now it seems this is only possible if you accept that you'll only be able to build on top of chromium. I know the focus by the DOJ here seems to be more on search and less on the technical control that Google has over the web experience through implementation complexity, however I can only hope that by turning off the flow of free cash more "alternative" browsers are given some space to catch up. Things like manifest V3 show that Google is no stranger to tightening the leash if the innovation of web technologies impact their bottom line, I'd like to have a web where this type of control isn't possible.
  • wruza 2y ago
    That was the goal, not an accident. The length of the standard itself is comparable to medium-sized serious project kloc count. They driven these numbers up to ensure that no one except them and their leashed pets could repeat it. And here we are, you can have ten internet-enabled apps with texts, images and videos, basically the same functionality, but you can only copy nine of them. You can’t even keep up with a simple fork.
  • niutech 2y ago
    > Can nothing be done to the web to lower the barrier to entry such that an independent group (a la OpenBSD or similar) can maintain their own? Of course it can and it is done: Linux Foundation Europe runs Servo, GNOME Foundation runs WebKitGTK and Epiphany, Ladybird Browser Initiative runs Ladybird.
    • smallerize 2y ago
      Only WebKitGTK is feature complete. Servo and especially Ladybird are still likely to run into missing features while browsing.
• throwinothrside 2y ago
  I have a feeling this will get worse. I can think of these companies which have the resources to take over Chrome - Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and Facebook. I can't see anybody else. They are all monopolies and is gonna screw it up big time for us consumers.
  • resource_waste 2y ago
    Same. This seems like a 'lets pretend to hurt google' thing. No one complained about Chrome.
    • throwinothrside 2y ago
      Am not saying no one complained about it. FLoC aand many many decisions by google proves they are horrible. But I dont think this will solve the problem. This will make it more worse.
  • devnullbrain 2y ago
    >I can think of these companies which have the resources to take over Chrome... Exactly, who on Earth could build a competitor? You're describing the problem! The ability to take stunning losses each year without worry, knowing that it pays dividends in the value to search, ensures competition can't flourish. So it is anti-competitive.
    • throwinothrside 2y ago
      I am definitely not a google fan here. In fact a privacy nerd. But if they sell it off like this, it will hurt consumers more. We need to make Google play by the rules so that we can set an example for the rest. Not recreate the same problem with another company so that we will have to do the same after a decade all over again. Cos at that point, nothing will change for the consumers except the brand logo of the company that is doing crazy things.
      • devnullbrain 2y ago
• openrisk 2y ago
  If there is an auction for Chrome maybe the Onion could place a bid?
• Ameo 2y ago
  My primary worry here is that this would hurt the open web - whether or not splitting out Chrome into a separate business would be good for consumers in and of itself. It's true that Google adds a lot of things to Chrome or their own benefit or even the potential detriment of others like Mozilla. That being said, they also do a tremendous amount of work to push the state of the web forward and, most importantly, they release Chromium 100% free and open source. That's not to mention the other incredibly impactful free projects that have stemmed from it like V8/NodeJS, Electron, Puppeteer, Chrome Devtools, etc. On the flip side, it's been argued that Google's control over web standards is too strong and they can essentially strong-arm other browser vendors into implementing whatever they want. It's also been argued that Google pushes too fast and makes it impossible for other vendors to keep up, leading people to use Chrome if they want the latest + greatest web features. But when we look at the other browser vendors, I personally feel like Google seems like a much better alternative. Mozilla feels like a dried up husk of the company it apparently once was and Apple pushes a buggy, closed-source, locked-down browser which has been purposely held back from critical features in the past (I think they did that to try to keep users off web apps and keep them paying Apple huge app store fees). ---- Anyway, I certainly have very mixed feelings on this one. My main hope is that this doesn't spell the beginning of the end for Chromium because I truly believe it's a piece of software that has provided immense public benefit.
  • JCharante 2y ago
    Yeah selling chrome makes no sense, who would buy it? It doesn’t make any money.
  • chucke1992 2y ago
    Google has to be dismantled in parts one way or another - too much control over search and Youtube to the point where they are able to enforce Chrome standards that prevent adblocks from working.
    • ikeashark 2y ago
      > Youtube to the point where they are able to enforce Chrome standards that prevent adblocks from working. Youtube needs to profitable somehow, and advertisers are the best way to do this. If Youtube couldn't generate the revenue through advertising, what else can they do? It's insanely expensive to do video streaming, hence why Google invests a lot in the new compression formats today, WEBP, Brotli, AV1. Do you just expect them to just do all of this for free?
• Timber-6539 2y ago
  This farce we call capitalism works really well.
• flanked-evergl 2y ago
  The shakeup coming to the DOJ next year can't come soon enough.
• lakomen 2y ago
  Ok good and who will then deliver the same or better vode quality, who could?
• lofaszvanitt 2y ago
  Nope, browsers should be developed by countries, together, not by some faceless entity.
  • nfw2 2y ago
    the government can't even build us a public toilet at this point
• lakomen 2y ago
  State owned web browser might be a thing. If it's in the interest of many the state should pay for it. I know what you're thinking, "but that's communism". Well, you can't clench and fart, how they say. This of course adds new problems, like backdooring by 3 letter agencies, corruption, abuse by politicians who exclude certain countries by agenda etc
  • AlienRobot 2y ago
    No, I'm thinking why would I, a Brazilian, use a U.S. web browser.
    • lakomen 2y ago
      Yes, you're not wrong, I didn't want to write international gremium , or UN, but the state owned implying owned by the public.
• yapyap 2y ago
  “Push google” In what way
• Clubber 2y ago
  This is an extremely weak remedy. They should force Google to sell YouTube and Android.
• oliwarner 2y ago
  You could make all these arguments against Android, no? Perhaps moreso while they maintain the garden wall. It isn't wrong to point out how harmful to society monopolies are, and to identify them, but the development of Chrome, Android, etc, do also present genuine value to anybody who wants that code. Without Google making money from the search/targeting/advertising model, who is paying for Chrome, Firefox and Google Search? Who is paying for Android after third party marketplaces take off? I'm not making any recommendations here except that I think we need to be careful what we wish for. Tools we rely on might evaporate.
  • devnullbrain 2y ago
    You could, and I would. The toys we enjoy today are not worth sacrificing future developments. Nothing advances customer interests as much as competition.
• pmdr 2y ago
  Good, Google's browser monopoly is a threat to the open web.
• coretx 2y ago
  We went from hardware we could trust & control and gopher + plain html to hardware that spies on us and have limited control over and fully turing complete software with access to all hardware & DRM. - and no sensible way out. Maybe not only Google, but everyone needs to rethink the concept of a browser.
• LatteLazy 2y ago
  Every time these cases come up, I ask the same question: what is this supposed to actually achieve and how will it work? Who will buy chrome? And how will they make a profit from doing so? Presumably they will charge google for good to remain the default search engine? But then we will just end up in the same place as now won't we? (Chrome being a popular but not the only browser; Google being the default but not only search engine). So how will this make the end user or the advertisers (don't forget, they are the consumer here, since they are paying, not the user) richer or happier or whatever else? People seem stuck on "monopoly bad" and that something has to be done. But are not clear on what the harm is here, or how to prevent that harm. Instead, this is something and something has to be done...
• fidotron 2y ago
  One of the hidden costs of Chrome on society is it supports radically ramping up the complexity of web specifications in order to extend the moat around it. It is one of the most extraordinary software engineering projects ever done, with multiple components each of which are game changers. (ANGLE, v8 and libwebrtc immediately come to mind). It is no accident Rust spun out of an effort to compete with this complexity explosion without having infinite financial resources. Personally I would prioritize spinning off Android though, and partly pragmatically since at least that would have a clear revenue stream. Maybe the Chrome App Store will experience a sudden surge in importance. A degoogled Chrome OS could almost start to look better than the direction Windows is going in.
  • ycombinatrix 2y ago
    libwebrtc not good
    • pthatcherg 2y ago
      Why don't you like libwebrtc? There's a lot of good stuff in there.
      • ycombinatrix 2y ago
        i like webRTC as a technology but it seriously bothered me that any random website can get all my local IP addresses by default. which dunce at Google was responsible for that?
• paxys 2y ago
  How does one sell an open source project exactly?
• cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  splitting Chrome and Android off from Google will do little to kneecap Google's monopoly power, and will just cause those two projects to fail, with no revenue source. There's no way to make money from Chrome that wouldn't just _suck_ for consumers. google's monopoly powers come from its ads business, and the data collection network that comes with search and other facilities. Split crawling/indexing (for search), search itself, and search ads/display ads out into separate businesses. Search has to pay for the index, and others could buy access into the same index. Ads has to pay search for data. etc etc. Then you'll see some changes.
• mihaic 2y ago
  This feels like doing something just to do something. I hate the fact that Google owns Chrome just as much as the next person here, but what's going to happen next? Are you going to sell it to ByteDance since they have the biggest offer? Just having half a plan can be worse than having a full plan. At the same time, it might be just a thread from the DOJ to get Google to play ball on something else, but it's hard to assume competence and forethought for something like this.
• tannhaeuser 2y ago
  Selling off Chrome might help, or it might just be the lesser evil/a pawn sacrifice in order to prevent split up of AdSense from Google Search (which is in obvious conflict of interest, as Google's ad business is already under scrutiny under alleged price fixing along with Meta), or of YouTube. Neither Google's acquisition of YouTube nor that of DoubleClick should've been allowed in the first place under any reasonable antitrust enforcement, the purpose of which is to prevent exactly this kind of monopoly.
• CivBase 2y ago
  How exactly does Chrome make money without leveraging the exact antitrust behaviors that are driving this decision? Do they become like Firefox and make themselves dependent on Google to pay top dollar for the default search engine? Wouldn't that just make them beholden to their original owner anyways?
• JohnClark1337 2y ago
  [dead]
• lenerdenator 2y ago
  Good. I mean, it won't matter by mid-2025, but the thought is nice.
• CM30 2y ago
  Honestly, on a consumer/public interest level, this would be a great thing to see. Google would have to make sure their sites work well on all browsers, since they wouldn't maintain Chrome anymore (or have control over its functionality), Chrome wouldn't get an extra marketing, since Google wouldn't be able to market it to people using its products or services, and there would be far less of an incentive to do things like change addon APIs if it's not the parent company losing money from blocked ads. The two big questions however are: 1. Who would buy it? Because if it's someone like Microsoft, then we're back to square 1. It's another IE6/Chrome situation, with conflicting interests and unfair marketing efforts. Personally I can't see Apple, Meta or Microsoft buying Chrome though (or being allowed to under anti monopoly laws), so lord knows who'd end up with it. Mozilla or an open foundation of sorts would be the best option, but I somehow doubt it'll be those either 2. How is it going to be funded? You ideally don't want the Firefox 'solution' where Google basically pays them to exist, but you can't really sell a browser either. So how it could be standalone and remain a viable venture is anyone's guess.
• mattatobin 2y ago
  I'd like to remind you all.. You were the ones who abandoned Firefox and pushed Chrome and clones ruining Firefox and Mozilla as a whole by market dumbassery in the process. NOW Microsoft is primed as they have defacto control of the windows chromium branch to go full force Internet Explorer with Edge .. i been seeing the features creep up toward that end. Re-interpretations of 25 year ideas that frankly would have been better then than now. GOOD WORK TECHIES you just handed the web back to Microsoft. Guess that counts as part of .. some sort of great reset huh? -Tobin, former Pale Moon Asshole
• erickf1 2y ago
  If it's not Google, it will be someone else that dominates the browser market.
• LinuxBender 2y ago
  Would Google be stopped from selling Chrome to a spin-off of a former Alphabet company?
• zusammen 2y ago
  [dead]
• lanthissa 2y ago
  Why is this a better solution than forcing chrome to have no defaults and select an option just like IE. Chrome google pulled the entire browser market forward by investing in chrome. A stand alone chrome is just going to make money by charging by default status or be bought by someone else trying to create push their defaults.
  • catlikesshrimp 2y ago
    I will fix the internet for you: + No platform ever must include an Internet Brower by default. User must install one some way without anyone being suggested or hinted by platform. Platform can inform user an internet browser can be installed but not saying how. Platform owner can set a default anytime + No Internet Browser ever must default, or suggest or hint a search engine. The platform owner can always pick one himself. Internet Browser is defined as any program with a User Interface which can acquire content from any public network The devil is inthe defaults. Edit: I forgot to add how to finance it: Internet browser will now datamine the customer. Customer can pay for a privacy respecting browser, but we all know how that doesn't fly (yet)
    • ghostpepper 2y ago
      How would new users install a browser without having a browser? The browser is where 99% of users spend 99% of their time.
      • asadotzler 2y ago
        Get-AppxPackage works fine for me.
        • albrewer 2y ago
          I don't see my 80 year old grandmother learning how to use a terminal anytime soon.
          • notfed 2y ago
• NickC25 2y ago
  Could Google just circumvent this entirely by making Chrome 100% open source? I realize Chrome is partially open source, but IIRC Google still has some special abilities that no fork has the ability to access.
• tantalor 2y ago
  "Big tech companies aren't allowed to distribute their own web browser" is going to come as a big surprise to Microsoft and Apple.
  • timbit42 2y ago
    Except that's not what they are saying.
• skizm 2y ago
  Could someone make a new company with the sole purpose of buying Chrome, then just sell Google back the same data they were already collecting?
• fizlebit 2y ago
  Am I alone in thinking that all the stuff I get for free (in exchange for some amount of targeted advertising) from Google is pretty cool and that these attempts to break up big tech are going to be very bad for consumers and the economy and is just punishing successful companies that produce products that customers want to use. You all can use mosaic/edge if you want to.
  • laweijfmvo 2y ago
    You are certainly not alone. I’d say you’re in the vast vast majority, just not necessarily on our little corner of the Internet (hackernews), but realistically probably the majority here as well.
  • devnullbrain 2y ago
    You get nice stuff for free, right up until the moment Google decide that they've done enough. Then you get nothing. And the unfair funding and disparity in features means no competitors can ever provide a superior alternative. And then it might not be for free. It's very tempting to rent-seek when you have a captive user base. That's bad for consumers and bad for the economy. Focusing on what we get today is myopic and it's not by mistake that Google give them to us.
• tylerchilds 2y ago
  selling off chrome seems like a terrible idea for this simple reason the new owner needs to recoup a twenty billion dollar investment
• nashashmi 2y ago
  They can sell Chrome, keep Chromium, rebrand ChromeOS to nAndroidOS, and launch a new browser called Google DrEdge (based on Chromium). Full circle ⭕. Back to where we started.
  • asadotzler 2y ago
    That's not how this works. They'll sign a consent decree that forbids them from just that for a decade or three and the DOJ will have staff officed in Google campuses monitoring them for the entire time.
    • nashashmi 2y ago
      Sale of chrome can include non compete by the buyer. DOJ cant itself do something like that.
• flkenosad 2y ago
  At this point, I feel like Chrome is more valuable than Search.
  • fluidcruft 2y ago
    Ultimately, how does Chrome itself make any money? As far as I know it doesn't, so the value to Google is ultimately control. The positives include not having to tolerate the whims of Microsoft or Apple or Mozilla or Amazon or beg any of these to implement features or endure microsabotage. The negatives are the temptation to subject everyone else to Google's whims and sabotage competitors.
• titzer 2y ago
  The conflict of interest between owning search, being a provider of user identity/login, and effectively owning the entire internet ads marketplace, and being a provider of the "user agent" (remember when people thought of that way!?) is immense. This should have happened years ago. TBF, I worked in Chrome almost 7 years and I didn't see anything outright nefarious. I don't know how user-hostile decisions (like breaking ad blockers and serving advertisers better) get made, but they do get made, or defaulted into. Trust me, the leadership of Chrome knows exactly how to justify its $300 million+ budget to the rest of Google, revenue numbers and all.
  • asadotzler 2y ago
    I'm guessing that budget is well over half a billion today. Got data?
  • tantalor 2y ago
    "Conflict of interest" has a precise ethical/legal definition. It doesn't mean "somebody is doing something I don't like".
    • titzer 2y ago
      From the Oxford dictionary: conflict of interest, n: a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible. "the conflict of interest between elected officials and corporate lobbyists"
      • tantalor 2y ago
        Sure that's a colloquial sense, but we're talking about a legal sense here. The legal/ethical sense is where one party has an actual obligation to multiple other parties whose interests are incompatible. For instance, a lawyer who represents both sides of a dispute has a conflict in interest; they cannot faithfully satisfy their obligations to all their clients. In your example you cited a few services, * provide a search engine * provide login * run ads business * provide a web browser But you haven't explained what the legal/ethical obligations are, and where the conflict arises, e.g., how one company cannot possibly fulfill all of those obligations.
• shadowgovt 2y ago
  This will likely lead to a Safari hegemony. Possibly an Edge / Safari duopoly. Chrome doesn't have a business model to make money. If it gets calved off into its own thing, it'll either need to find another line of business to supplement the cost of building and maintaining a browser, or it'll go bankrupt. Close-to-nobody is willing to pay money for a browser alone, so it's unlikely they'll be able to float a business on selling the browser itself.
• mattmaroon 2y ago
  Thats lovely but I think ultimately not going after the root problem. Going after the root problem would be pushing them to divorce the advertising business from the rest.
• lowbloodsugar 2y ago
  No they won’t.
• iamleppert 2y ago
  Hopefully BlackRock buys it and runs it into the ground.
• freedomben 2y ago
  > They are also prepared to seek a requirement that Google share more information with advertisers and give them more control over where their ads appear. I don't think Google are fully clean in all this by any stretch, but for all the people saying that Google is just privacy-violating data junkies, did you catch that aspect of the DOJ statement?? The DOJ wants the advertisers to have MORE information (about us). That makes me sick.
  • hightrix 2y ago
    I definitely glossed over this line. This line of thinking makes me worried that someone in the upcoming government will get the "good" idea of trying to ban adblockers.
  • wmf 2y ago
    Antitrust leads to weird outcomes in markets where all the players are anti-consumer. (advertising, antivirus, car dealers, etc.)
• kernal 2y ago
  If Google is forced to sell off Chrome why would any company buy it? They wouldn't get the developers that work on Chrome / Chromium. They wouldn't get access to the proprietary Google services that Chrome uses so they would be buying a copy of Chromium. Google could then close the Chromium source code and develop a new closed source browser. The Chrome browser would then slowly die due to lack of development resources, money, and innovation while the new Google browser would quickly gain the market share that was taken away from them.
  • timbit42 2y ago
    They'll spin it off into its own company.
• TheMagicHorsey 2y ago
  This seems unnecessary. Google's search business is being disrupted along different axes already ... LLMs, voice agents, Apple Intelligence, etc.
  • xvector 2y ago
    the wheels of justice turn slowly and incompetently
• cryptozeus 2y ago
  I think chrome can become independent company and provide search and usage apis to all the companies like google, msft, apple etc.
• deburo 2y ago
  Would this even survive the coming change of administration? Why attempt this now?
• ssalka 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/bBDQt https://archive.ph/bBDQt
• rkagerer 2y ago
  Google says the proposals would harm consumers and developers Hey Google - I'm both, and your trend over the years of degrading products I used to love with increasingly user-hostile choices has already caused me more harm than I can imagine could arise out of fixing the incentives.
• diob 2y ago
  Antitrust and antimonopoly would do so much for the economy over in the USA. We need smaller companies, and more of them. Leads to more innovation, better jobs / distributions of wealth.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
  No Javascript: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-will-push-google-to-sell-off-chrome-to-break-search-monopoly https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-will-push-goog... No SNI: https://web.archive.org/web/20241119090808if_/https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-will-push-google-to-sell-off-chrome-to-break-search-monopoly https://web.archive.org/web/20241119090808if_/https://news.b...
• rnd0 2y ago
  How does this affect Chromium?
• AlienRobot 2y ago
  DuckDuckGo has a web browser. Brave has a search engine. Kagi has a web browser. It seems weird to single Google for this. Wasn't the core issue behind this that these other search engines couldn't compete with Google? Vivaldi is a much better browser than their Chromium re-skins. Perhaps if their browsers were better people would use them instead of using Chrome. Additionally, perhaps if their search was better than Google, they would use it as well! Google shoves AI overviews in your face now, and if that sucks, the only reasonable alternative is to use Bing currently. I can't use Brave's search or Mojeek. Brave ignores underscores. Mojeek doesn't even have a business model so it stops anyone from actually using it as a search engine. Yandex is full of results in Russian. I wish someone would tell me what is this fabled competitor to Google that would benefit from crippling Google because so far I haven't been able to find one. I'd say the only engines better than Google are Wiby and Kiddle, because they focus on a specific niche instead of trying to compete on general web search.
  • asadotzler 2y ago
    Tell us you don't understand the first thing about centuries of anti-trust law without telling us you don't understand anti-trust law.
    • AlienRobot 2y ago
      Why don't you illuminate me if you're so knowledgeable?
  • ColinHayhurst 2y ago
    Mojeek CEO here: Our business model is our paid API and contextual, no-tracking ads.
    • AlienRobot 2y ago
      Interesting, when I was taking a look at alternative search engines I tried Mojeek and I never saw a single ad, so I assumed it had no way to make money (just like Wiby). But where are the ads? I just searched for "best cars 2024." Not a single ad. "Insurance lawyers," no ads. "Best keyboard," no ads. Maybe the reason why this happens is because I'm not from the US/EU/UK? Also when I use a search operator, like "insurance lawyers" surrounded by double quotes, I get a 403 forbidden error because I appear "to be sending automated queries so we can't process your search at this time." To me, that means Mojeek won't let me use it as a search engine.
• zombiwoof 2y ago
  Elon and Trumo will buy it and rename it Gold
• DeathArrow 2y ago
  They should split Chrome, search, ADS, Gmail, Youtube, Cloud and Android at least.
• learningstud 2y ago
  This is so stupid. When will we learn some common sense from Milton Friedman?
• tway223 2y ago
  Who will be the buyer? ORCL or IBM?
  • timbit42 2y ago
    More likely Microsoft since they are using the Chrome engine in Edge.
• ingen0s 2y ago
  Just open source it and call it a day - the world isn’t all about money
• postalrat 2y ago
  Lets hope Apple doesn't buy and Dark Sky it.
• AzzyHN 2y ago
  Mozilla has a chance to do something really funny
• bloppe 2y ago
  First, it's important to keep a clear view of what's actually for sale here. Chromium is an open source project that already forms the basis of other browsers (most prominently Edge and Brave) and does not include all the weird Google stuff that the the DOJ takes issue with (tracking for ads, special privileges for Google websites, etc.). Chrome is basically a thin layer of shittiness on top of Chromium. That thin layer of shittiness is what's for sale. Its entire value is derived from the fact that it's already dominant. So whoever buys it is effectively buying that user base, but not much of a technical moat to keep them all in. Who might buy it? I can list them: - Apple - Microsoft That's it. Turns out you can't properly invest in a Browser without conflicts of interest. Apple might buy it to help drive more users toward the App Store. Microsoft might buy it for similar, all-too-familiar reasons. They both have the funds and incentives to want this massive "captive" audience, and the means to exploit it, and I can't think of anybody else who would care enough to bid much. So what would happen to Google? That's the real question. Seems like the point is not selling anything. The point is to ban Google from having influence over any web browser. I wonder if Judge Mehta will be able to craft an effective order to that end.
  • xvector 2y ago
    Amazon or Meta could buy it as well.
• rldjbpin 2y ago
  albeit n=1 sample size, but looking at firefox should give enough indication to what would become of chrome if it gets detached from google. it is wishful thinking to assume that maintaining a dominant browser can be done if not through subsidizing through other means. as time has shown repeatedly that nobody wants to pay for this directly, it seems like any new ownership would resort to things that would ultimately ruin the browser for everyone. maybe that is the goal all along, but it is hard to debate whether that is going to be a net positive.
• JohnClark1337 2y ago
  [dead]
• all_usernames 2y ago
  Spoiler alert; Elon buys all your web browsers.
• willywanker 2y ago
  I was one of the very few voices against using Chrome when it debuted in 2008. How on earth did it make sense, even for the supposedly enlightened programmer/IT tech/gamer/nerd crowd to use a browser made by a company whose business model depends on profiling user data to sell ads? And mind that in 2008 they had already ditched the 'don't be evil' slogan for those naive enough to think that businesses are anything but amoral. And splitting hairs over Chrome vs Blink (the engine), or switching to the multiple other Blink wrapper browsers that are there, or Chrome's controlled opposition Firefox() makes no sense either; by using any of these you only help maintain Google's hegemony over the web and its standards. () - they don't get to call themselves a scrappy little privacy crusading rebel when bankrolled by Mozilla whose multi million dollar revenue remains primarily from Google being the default search engine in Firefox, plus their own shenanigans.
• deadlast2 2y ago
  Why does Apple get to get it app store and its browser and its phones and OS etc. What about Microsoft with its OS's and apps.
• m3kw9 2y ago
  Another advantage. Chrome also have 65% market share according to google search, and they get to default the search to Google.com.
• sidd_sarkar 2y ago
  Yolo