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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

#511

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Certhas wrote: post #374
MichaelCharles wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopolies are bad. Splitting up monopolies is good for the consumer. That doesn't mean this makes any sense. How are they going to separate Chrome from Chromium? If they do, what incentive does Google have to keep maintaining Chromium? Can Google make another new fork of Chromium and start yet another browser? Or are they now banned from making browsers? What company has the resources to maintain Chrome's massive co…

Firefox is massively profitable at a fraction of Chrome's marketshare.

How much of that money is from Google?

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#512

Post by jansan »

rkharsan64 wrote: post #510

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 the…

I sincerely doubt that forcing Google to spin off Chrome is the only or best solution for this.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#513

Post by vsl »

arcticbull wrote: post #427
Ekaros wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Splitting monopolies is good. On other hand splitting "free" product is somewhat questionable. When the competitor don't have exactly viable business model. Pushing for something that will clearly in not too distant future kill the split product is not helpful.

The product is never free, it’s just you’re not the one paying for it. This setup prevents new entrants from competing just the same. [edit] the same way zero rating certain data traffic is still a net neutrality violation.

> This setup prevents new entrants from competing just the same.

Look at the new entrant browsers out there: all of them are based on Chromium. The existence of Chrome as an OSS project enabled competition in practice - the cost of entry is orders of magnitude lower when you have a mature browser engine at your disposal.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#515

Post by golol »

soraminazuki wrote: post #445
SpEd3Y wrote: post #417

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…

By that logic, people should still be at the mercy of AT&T because Bell Labs gave so much back to humanity. Not to mention that multiple items on your list were bought by Google. The world's biggest ad and surveillance company having control over the most widely used browser on the planet is a recipe for disaster. That's the only thing that matters in this discussion.

Why? What disaster? There can be no disaster when the product is free and there are many free alternatives with equal capability except for small conveniences. If you don't like Chrome because Google is being shady you can immediately seitch at zero cost. There is no disaster.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#516

Post by nolist_policy »

edelbitter wrote: post #455
SpEd3Y wrote: post #417

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…

> Android [..] everyone has access One of the key issues. Google has not given me a phone OS. They have taken away my ability to chose a viable competitor, one that does not run on selling my data.

But you can buy a pine phone or a Purism Librem phone.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#517

Post by golol »

batmansmk wrote: post #475
SpEd3Y wrote: post #417

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…

None of them are good players for humanity. "Don't be evil" is long gone. They don't pay taxes, pollute, give means to manipulate billions of humans, concentrate wealth in a few hands. They all give with ulterior motives, never from the goodness of their heart.

>pollute Seriously? You can't blame Google for its emissions.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#518

Post by soraminazuki »

SpEd3Y wrote: post #484
soraminazuki wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic, people should still be at the mercy of AT&T because Bell Labs gave so much back to humanity. Not to mention that multiple items on your list were bought by Google. The world's biggest ad and surveillance company having control over the most widely used browser on the planet is a recipe for disaster. That's the only thing that matters in this discussion.

> By that logic, people should still be at the mercy of AT&T because Bell Labs gave so much back to humanity. So your argument is that Bell Labs should have never happened since it's the result of a monopoly? My argument is that Monopolies are trade offs. In a world without monopolies you have very little innovation in peace time. Monopolies are bad for consumers but the trade off is that they can afford to innovate…

In case I wasn't clear enough, my argument is this:

> The world's biggest ad and surveillance company having control over the most widely used browser on the planet is a recipe for disaster. That's the only thing that matters in this discussion.

And no, I don't buy that innovation can only happen through monopolies with a savior complex. That absurd amount of money those monopolies acquired through questionable means? It's going to lawyers, lobbyists, investors, and C-suites. It's being used to stifle innovation and uphold the status quo. Without the breakup of AT&T, the internet as we know it might not have even existed.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#519

Post by jsnell »

jfoster wrote: post #419

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._...

That is a different case, this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Google_LLC_(2...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#520

Post by batmansmk »

sneak wrote: post #486
batmansmk wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of them are good players for humanity. "Don't be evil" is long gone. They don't pay taxes, pollute, give means to manipulate billions of humans, concentrate wealth in a few hands. They all give with ulterior motives, never from the goodness of their heart.

While I don’t disagree with your argument, it is bad form to claim that companies like these don’t pay massive amounts of taxes, specifically payroll taxes. They do and it’s a huge amount.

I' m European. Apple got charged by the European Union for $14.4 billions of unpaid taxes between 2019 and 2021. Back of the mapkin they employ 22k people in EU (data Apple), average salary $80k (Apple), taxes at 30% per employee (my own understanding). Thats $550M. So their payroll taxes is about 15% of their tax package. If you have any contradictory data, I would love it, but your point is moot for 95% of the world outside California.
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