Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 1001 posts

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#521

Post by jajko »

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…

How far can one go from 'don't be evil', right.

And that's one aspect of one product. Company-wide list would be probably impressive in the worst way possible

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#522

Post by simiones »

jansan wrote: post #512
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.

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.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#523

Post by madeforhnyo »

golol wrote: post #515
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.

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.

The disaster of global surveillance? Just because you don't pay with money doesn't mean the product is free. Expecting users beyond the HN crowd to have an informed opinion about the browser war is not realistic, especially given the substantial amount of dollars that Alphabet spent to market "Chrome == Internet". Which antitrust laws are supposed to prevent.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#524

Post by postepowanieadm »

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.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#525

Post by moody__ »

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.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#526

Post by InsomniacL »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #481
jeswin wrote: post #329

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 st…

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. pai…

> Apple doesn't have a similar position in any space though, or do they?

Apple has exclusive control over a market (AppStore), which has almost 2 million different products (Apps), 820,000 suppliers (app publishers) and over 1.3 billion customers (active iPhone users) which conducts more trade ($1.1 trillion) than the entire GDP of Luxemburg.

If that's not a monopoly i don't know what is.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#527

Post by tr3ntg »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #439

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

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.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#529

Post by cturner »

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…

You have made the argument that monopolies are trade-offs only to the extent of muddying the waters about the matter. You have not demonstrated that the innovation benefit of monopolies offsets opportunity cost of the monopoly. If you want to make that case, you need to evidence it. You have not evidenced your claim that there is less innovation in low-monopoly situations than in high-monopoly situations. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

(I agree with your earlier sentiment that Google has a history of giving out more than other companies you listed.)

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#530

Post by alt227 »

ozyschmozy wrote: post #309
jedberg wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great for consumers. Google would be forced to make their products work just as well with other browsers as it does with their own. I only use Chrome to interact with Google properties. I'd love to use Firefox for everything.

I see a lot of people saying Google services don't work well on other browsers. Can someone give an example? I've been using Firefox desktop and mobile for a year and haven't had any issues with Google stuff. At least YouTube, drive, docs, sheets, etc. seem to work just fine

In google docs if you highlight some text and right click there are options for copy and paste. If you click them in chrome it works fine, if you click them in Firefox it says:

"These actions are unavailable using the Edit menus, but you can still use: Ctrl+C - for copy, Ctrl+X - for cut, Ctrl+V - for paste"

So for some reason some functions are just not present in other browsers. I can guarantee they could implement these functions if they wanted to.

Post reply on HN