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DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#201

Post by legitster »

mplewis9z wrote: post #194
jascination wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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 Micr…

Safari is the #2 browser behind Chrome. It's about 55% to 30%, so while Chrome has a larger market share, it's not an order of magnitude larger.

Really the main difference is that Apple has a captive audience on iOS and no incentives to improve so they don't do anything with it.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#202

Post by elashri »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #157

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.

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.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#203

Post by gnabgib »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #195
jascination wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> how is it different to Apples integration with Safari? Apple hasn't been found to have a monopoly like Google has [1]. [1] https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-search-engine-ve...

Found to be is doing far too much work given the DOJ lawsuit that it has a monopoly (2546 points, 8 months ago, 2623 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778999

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#204

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

techjamie wrote: post #103
lemoncookiechip wrote: post #72

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…

As much as I dislike thinking it, out of the realistic possibilities for who could buy it, Microsoft is probably among the more preferable. Their primary income isn't from advertising, at least. Most other big players would be even more likely to continue with Google's direction of killing ad blockers. MS, to their credit, has never shown interest in doing that.

> Their primary income isn't from advertising, at least

Surely they wouldn't auto-default Chrome to Bing and try to become an ad company.

It's not like they're selling ads in the Start menu or anything...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#205

Post by hilbert42 »

curiouscat321 wrote: post #5

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.

"Who would possibly buy Chrome?"

This is illustrates the extent and magnitude of the problem to fix the internet. That regulators failed to give enough oversight of the internet and to regulate its monopolistic players several decades ago when these problems first became obvious has meant that they are now almost insurmountable.

Ideally, Google would be forced to divest itself of Chrome and that Chrome would become an open source project a la Linux. Clearly, that's very unlikely to happen.

For those who'd argue that Chrome would have no funding to further develop I'd respond by saying that it already works well as a browser and from observation that Google is channeling most of Chrome's development funds into anti-features that are hostile to users.

As an open source project that level of funding would be no longer necessary and its future development could progress at a slower pace.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#206

Post by dismalaf »

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.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#208

Post by elashri »

xnx wrote: post #136

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.

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?

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#210

Post by andrewflnr »

kittikitti wrote: post #66
andrewflnr wrote: post #17

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?

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.

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.
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