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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

#621

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.

Monopolies are not inherently bad. They are only bad when they abuse that position to retain a monopoly or allow a decline in product quality.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#622
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…

Google isn’t “getting targeted”. But to answer your question. 1. Microsoft gets left alone - Really? You may want to ask the closest adult near you about this. 2. Amazon - The government has looked into Amazon multiple times. It’s hard to see where Amazon does anything to illegally use its monopoly (they don’t use their shopping advantage to cross sell AWS in any way, or Vice versa). Amazon is genuinely not a bad mon…

> It’s hard to see where Amazon does anything to illegally use its monopoly

Amazon literally uses the marketplace data to determine which products to make Amazon Basic versions of.

I think the better argument of "Google isn't getting targeted" is that literally all of those companies have been sued in the past (and will be in the future and probably currently have cases being worked against them).

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's not comparable to Google, but Microsoft did significantly invest in open source, they also open sourced .NET, made TypeScript, VS Code

It also made Linux viable on desktop :P WSL is my favourite Linux distro...well favourite is too strong. It's the one I hate the least.

Curious, do run into any network/IO performance issues? Last time I checked, networking is horrible, I mean `npm install ` would time out when it works on the host without issues, and this was a well known issue. Haven't touched WSL for a while because of this.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#624

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…

> - 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.)

I have yet to see evidence that Google uses browser sync data for advertising.

Go do something in chrome (look for cruises maybe), then delete the activity from myactivity.google.com, then wipe and reinstall chrome. You will see that you aren’t advertised based on that activity yet it’s still in your chrome history.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many EU web browsers: https://fosstodon.org/@niutech/113285649386968003

Like sponsored and controlled by the EU, the organization.

The EU has funded UR Browser by AdaptiveBee: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/port...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but I'm also not sure what the alternative is. Who's going to buy Chrome that also doesn't suffer from the same anti-trust problems? Who would want to buy Chrome? Who would want to fund Chrome? What browser would Android ship? In one view I kind of like the idea that Google would have to shop around and 'buy' a browser for its OS (competition good!), but also that seems ridiculous and easy to fall r…

Open source browsers already exist though

Many forks of Chromium, yes. Most if the rest of them pass the “open source” test but would struggle on the “browser” side.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#627
post #387
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.

What if this browser killed lots of other viable browsers because it was "free" (yet supported by and supporting a monopoly)? You never get to compare the products that never got to exist. related, I think google supported firefox to have a "viable" competitor to chrome and prevent monopoly scrutiny.

so, we will all pay for browsers for google don't be a monopoly anymore, that is the plan?

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#628
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…

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.

How so? Because you need to buy a converter cable?

That sounds like “marginally more expensive”, and certainly not a monopoly-abusing position.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#629
post #548

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…

The problem is this: - the browser is undeniably critical as everyone's window through which they view the online world; - the user gains a huge amount of value by a browser being integrated into the OS, webviews in other applications, etc - browsers aren't really a self funding product - having a single for-profit US advertising company control everyone's view of the online world, however slightly (e.g. by obstructi…

Any potential buyer will have to be looking to use Chrome to accomplish the same kinds of synergies that Google is using it for, to get ahead in some adjacent market. Depending on the buyer that could be good for competition, at least in the short term, but it's not clear that it will be better for us as users.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#630
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.

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