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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

#781

Post by tantalor »

titzer wrote: post #772
tantalor wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conflict of interest" has a precise ethical/legal definition. It doesn't mean "somebody is doing something I don't like".

From the Oxford dictionary: conflict of interest, n: a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible. "the conflict of interest between elected officials and corporate lobbyists"

Sure that's a colloquial sense, but we're talking about a legal sense here.

The legal/ethical sense is where one party has an actual obligation to multiple other parties whose interests are incompatible. For instance, a lawyer who represents both sides of a dispute has a conflict in interest; they cannot faithfully satisfy their obligations to all their clients.

In your example you cited a few services,

* provide a search engine

* provide login

* run ads business

* provide a web browser

But you haven't explained what the legal/ethical obligations are, and where the conflict arises, e.g., how one company cannot possibly fulfill all of those obligations.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#782

Post by kernal »

rawgabbit wrote: post #718
pjc50 wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The issue is who controls Chromium. I would create a non profit and staff it with a handful of maintainers. Their primary job would be to ensure safety and squash exploits. Their other job is to curate and approve pull requests from volunteers for enhancements. They should make it open source with the caveat if it is used for commercial purposes, there will be a licensing fee to pay for security enhancements, bug bou…

Do you think Google will continue to invest money and resources into the development of Chromium if they were forced to sell Chrome? I don't. The first thing I would do is close source the Chromium project and work on a new closed source browser to compete with Chrome. I also don't see Chrome surviving when all of the Google/Chromium developers have left.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#783

Post by madeofpalk »

niutech wrote: post #777
throwaway2037 wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise some very important points. Specifically, this one: > browsers aren't really a self funding product I feel the same. I also feel the same about a modern C library and C compiler (and C++, if you like). They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome?

Browsers can be profitable, see Opera: https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-detail... But not everything must be for-profit. Free/Libre/Open Source Software is a prime example. Projects like GNU, Linux, GNOME, KDE, WebKitGTK, LibreOffice are sustainable for a long time.

I guess its easy to be a profitable company when you're getting into predatory payday loans! https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/opera-defends-its-android-a...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#786

Post by dismalaf »

niutech wrote: post #777
throwaway2037 wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise some very important points. Specifically, this one: > browsers aren't really a self funding product I feel the same. I also feel the same about a modern C library and C compiler (and C++, if you like). They are essential to build any modern system and applications. Yet, those are also (mostly) no longer self-funding products. What do you think will happen if Google is forced to divest Chrome?

Browsers can be profitable, see Opera: https://investor.opera.com/news-releases/news-release-detail... But not everything must be for-profit. Free/Libre/Open Source Software is a prime example. Projects like GNU, Linux, GNOME, KDE, WebKitGTK, LibreOffice are sustainable for a long time.

Every browser also gets a significant amount of money from Google. Mozilla is profitable too. But when Google is forced to stop paying browsers to use their search, it'll put Apple and Microsoft at an even wider advantage since they're the ones that can afford to push their own browsers at a loss...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#787

Post by madeofpalk »

maeil wrote: post #746
pjc50 wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> browsers aren't really a self funding product They are, see how both Safari and Firefox, the 2nd and 3rd most popular browsers, have brought in tens of billions of revenue per year. Safari is immensely profitable, Firefox too would be if Mozilla wouldn't be run in an absurdly poor manner. > the user gains a huge amount of value by a browser being integrated into the OS, webviews in other applications, etc What is t…

> Safari is immensely profitable

The exact way Safari itself is immensely profitable is under scruity in this exact DOJ case!

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#789

Post by chaosharmonic »

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…

> This isn't an isolated attempt. You can see more of the same thing with Android.

Here are more:

- (jumping off of your second point...) Play Services does more than just handle stuff you sign into as a user -- it's also a dependency for everything from push notifications to screen casting. This actively poses issues building competing platforms, in that in order to give developers a path to shipping in your ecosystem you have to provide functioning alternatives to all of those ancillary features. The compatibility issue also impacts user adoption, and then the user adoption and the barren marketplace impact each other... Even the combined resources of Amazon and Microsoft weren't enough to overcome this. (Facebook did, but I'm also not sure forking the OS into a separate VR platform is necessarily the same thing.)

- It also comes with integrity checking, so even if you do find a good third party image, and sideload Google packages, numerous things won't work unless you take part in a dumb arms race that ironically requires you to also root your device. By which I mean a feature that was originally built for banking applications is now used everywhere from streaming services (as an additional layer of DRM) to gacha games (for anti-cheat). This is actually the entire reason I dropped Pokemon Go, personally.

Obligatory link to the excellent Ars piece on this topic: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#790

Post by tombert »

legitster wrote: post #153

I'm all for competition and increasing consumer choices, but the government is really not making a case that this is supposed to help consumers. The only reason I still use Chrome is because I already use other Google products and they integrate well together. There are many other better options out there otherwise, and they are all free. Breaking out Chrome from Google will not in any way benefit me as a consumer. >…

> The only reason I still use Chrome is because I already use other Google products and they integrate well together.

Isn't that kind of the complaint though? Google, by controlling the platform and therefore sort of indirectly controlling the entire web, can make it artificially easier to push you to their products, and push you away from others.

If I wanted, for example, to make a competitor to Google Docs, I'm not just competing with Google Docs, I'm also competing with the integration of Google Docs with Chrome, meaning that Google Docs can be artificially better than my product. While I don't know if Google has actually done this, it would be pretty easy for them to actively gimp any Google Doc competitor in Chrome so that you're more likely to use their service instead.

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