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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

#861

Post by niutech »

pphysch wrote: post #754
titzer wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if Google didn't take anything from us. Google makes money selling your attention and brainpower to the highest bidder. Hands down. They are the biggest entity in the attention economy and their real customers are advertisers. Google has two billion lines of code that determine the course of your daily life. It processes incredibly sensitive information, like every interaction you have with another person in a dig…

How is that different from any other big tech company? Show me a single large company that doesn't comply with NSLs.

There are good examples: https://www.eff.org/wp/who-has-your-back-2019

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#862

Post by scarface_74 »

astrodust wrote: post #793
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…

Firefox has made a mountain of money off of their tiny market share. Chrome as a company would instantly rake in billions.

From making Google the default search engine…

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#863

Post by asadotzler »

azinman2 wrote: post #35

Browsers are complicated enough that I don’t see how a company could do the right thing without it being subsidized by a larger business. I feel like this is paving the ground for a Chinese startup to come take its place.

Browsers simply require paying a few hundred very in demand engineers, and that's hardly impossible if Mozilla's been doing it for 20 years as a non-profit. How many software shops out there have 500 engineers? I'm guessing literal hundreds US companies have that today and wouldn't be surprised if someone could build something that scale in a couple years with the proper budget and leadership.

But they won't have to build it, they'll just buy a chunk of Google's team with the Chrome trademarks and the chromium infrastructure and then scale back attempts to outpace the few other engine makers by piling on features only useful to an advertising monopoly and instead focus on the core feature set while raking in big bucks selling search and ad distribution to all the search and ad companies not named Google (and perhaps some even from Google too.)

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#864

Post by crvst »

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…

"Leave the multibillion dollar company alone!"

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#865

Post by asadotzler »

nashashmi wrote: post #731

They can sell Chrome, keep Chromium, rebrand ChromeOS to nAndroidOS, and launch a new browser called Google DrEdge (based on Chromium). Full circle ⭕. Back to where we started.

That's not how this works. They'll sign a consent decree that forbids them from just that for a decade or three and the DOJ will have staff officed in Google campuses monitoring them for the entire time.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#867

Post by asadotzler »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #193
jmpetroske wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can look up details of the lawsuit, but the idea is that Google paying Apple to be the default search engine prevents other search engines from competing with Google search. The default search selection has been shown to be quite important. Anti-trust law is built around the idea of maintaining competition - “monopolies” aren’t inherently illegal.

Every company does this though. They pay to be the exclusive or official XYZ of some company or event. For example, Bud Light being the official drink of the NFL. Or Coca-Cola being the exclusive drink that can be sold at the Olympics and many other sporting venues.

Every company isnt a monopoly under antitrust scrutiny.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#868

Post by asadotzler »

AlienRobot wrote: post #846

DuckDuckGo has a web browser. Brave has a search engine. Kagi has a web browser. It seems weird to single Google for this. Wasn't the core issue behind this that these other search engines couldn't compete with Google? Vivaldi is a much better browser than their Chromium re-skins. Perhaps if their browsers were better people would use them instead of using Chrome. Additionally, perhaps if their search was better than…

Tell us you don't understand the first thing about centuries of anti-trust law without telling us you don't understand anti-trust law.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#869

Post by azinman2 »

asadotzler wrote: post #863
azinman2 wrote: post #35

Browsers are complicated enough that I don’t see how a company could do the right thing without it being subsidized by a larger business. I feel like this is paving the ground for a Chinese startup to come take its place.

Browsers simply require paying a few hundred very in demand engineers, and that's hardly impossible if Mozilla's been doing it for 20 years as a non-profit. How many software shops out there have 500 engineers? I'm guessing literal hundreds US companies have that today and wouldn't be surprised if someone could build something that scale in a couple years with the proper budget and leadership. But they won't have to…

Mozilla does it by getting Google to pay them a bunch of money, which itself is the subject of anti-trust investigations. That money could dry up if Google is forced to no longer fund Mozilla, and if that happens, they’re screwed. It’ll also mean others likely won’t be able to pay either, which only leaves either buying software (who will pay for a browser?) or ads.

Also note that Mozilla has been doing this a long time, and yet they’re effectively irrelevant in market share now. So they’ve done a terrible job.

Browsers are a specialized technology and skill set that isn’t easily found, nor can you just throw any old SWE at the problem.

Re: DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

#870

Post by azinman2 »

niutech wrote: post #589
azinman2 wrote: post #35

Browsers are complicated enough that I don’t see how a company could do the right thing without it being subsidized by a larger business. I feel like this is paving the ground for a Chinese startup to come take its place.

How about Servo and Ladybird?

Servo is dead but Mozilla is subsidized by Google. Ladybird is not a real serious contender but more a hobby project with effectively 0% market share.
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