Maybe one of the big spyware players will buy chrome
Microsoft?
DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#162I'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…
Interesting idea. I'm not against forcing Google to choose either all the user platforms they run or Adsense. If they sold off Google Drive, Suite, YouTube, Google Play, etc they might improve faster. At the very least it would drive more alternatives. That seems so unlikely though.
Google kills all their other projects often enough that I don't think they are contributing to many spaces anymore so giving the technical assets to other companies would be interesting.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#163Who 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.
In the most chaotic alternate reality possible: Mozilla
Interestingly if I recall correctly a lot of the original talent for Chrome/Chromium originally worked at Mozilla and were poached by Google. [1]
[1] https://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/2008/09/google-chrome.html...
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#164I'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.
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.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
People gravitate towards Chrome in part because of Google’s heavy marketing of it. Whenever I sign into Gmail in Safari I get a pop up about a “better experience” awaiting me.
Chrome is definitely a better experience than Safari, and not by a little bit. In many ways Safari is the worst browser out there right now. Most of its market share comes from the fact that Apple still forces Safari to be used on iOS no matter what browser you think you have installed. I think the DOJ should go after Apple harder on that than they are on Google, because nobody is forcing anyone to use Chrome the sam…
I find Safari to be a fantastic product overall both on desktop and mobile but I have stuck to Chrome to keep my options open in future in case I want to use non-Apple hardware
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#166I'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…
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Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#167So what would happen to Chromebooks?
There was an article from Android Authority today that said it's being rebased on Android.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#168Who 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.
> 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.
Seems like the DOJ is angling that Chrome should be spun off as an advertising platform of some kind.
Seems so, so much worse.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#169Who 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.
> Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile Why not? Chrome's team isn't as prone to distracting itself as Mozilla. But there is still a lot of ancillary nonsense they get up to that wouldn't be necessary if it weren't in Google. Starting, for example, with not giving a fuck about how their product impacts ad sales.
Because you need to pay something like 1,000 engineers - and not just any engineers, but engineers used to Alphabet's SF Bay Area salaries and equity packages.
This quickly adds up to billions of dollars. You have the option to massively downsize, likely sacrificing product quality; or to sell something very valuable to a business-mined buyer. And there's really nothing a browser vendor can sell that isn't bad news for the users.
About the best option would be for Chrome to be spun off and then for Google to keep paying them for being the default search engine.
Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome
#170Again, 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.
> 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-5911...