131–140 of 153 posts
Couple of simple but perhaps naive questions: Can Microsoft pay Google to have it recommend Edge on the Google search homepage? Should Chrome, rather than have Google.com as the default homepage, offer a list of Search engines for the user to choose from? Should Chrome be the default browser on Android or should the user choose from a list?
"But what’s completely correct here is that Chrome is, quite explicitly, blocking users’ freedom to use their web browser the way they would expect with a piece of open source software; " No, what you expect from Open Source software is to be able to fork it, modify it, recompile it, and use the modifications. Open Source isn't about end-user features, it's about development freedom . A completely open source piece o…
Thats wrong. What you expect from open source software is to be able to see the source. This source may be available without the right to modify or redistribute it in any way whatsoever. You're looking for free software as preferred by the fsf, not open source.
So, what matters less is whether they are right or wrong and what matters more is what the before mentioned companies are doing about mitigating the risks of being confronted with excessive fines, rulings, and other forms of damage. The answer is, so far not a lot and that may become a problem as it seems pretty clear there is wide spread support for action against them.
I'd say both Google and Apple are pretty far down the road where they will have multi billion euro or dollar fines at some point. They are both highly profitable as well so that in it self would not necessarily be that much of a problem. What would be a problem is governments interfering with their business models.
IMHO, some action here would be good. These companies are getting a bit complacent about their position in the market and quite arrogant about casually snuffing out competition when it suits them. In general, it's time for a shake up in the mobile space. Google and Apple earned their position with the work they did last decade but nothing is forever and I remember a time when there were more credible options then just them.
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The MS settlement with the DoJ was reached in 2001, about three months after the release of IE6. If anything I think history shows the opposite occurred. Internet Explorer continued rapidly evolving during the antitrust case and its development "grounded to a halt" after the government let Microsoft off the hook. Which makes enough sense. MS always viewed the web as an enemy and wanted people on windows apps as their…
> Ultimately it was Apple who succeeded at that vision, obviously. At what vision?
"But what’s completely correct here is that Chrome is, quite explicitly, blocking users’ freedom to use their web browser the way they would expect with a piece of open source software; " No, what you expect from Open Source software is to be able to fork it, modify it, recompile it, and use the modifications. Open Source isn't about end-user features, it's about development freedom . A completely open source piece o…
> No, what you expect from Open Source software is to be able to fork it, modify it, recompile it, and use the modifications. Thats wrong. What you expect from open source software is to be able to see the source. This source may be available without the right to modify or redistribute it in any way whatsoever. You're looking for free software as preferred by the fsf, not open source.
> Open-source software (OSS) is a type of computer software in which source code is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose.
The difference between open source and free software is only ideological - you are probably thinking of shared source or source available.
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> How one rationalizes Chrome to be more "anti-trust-y" is contrary to logic. IMO it was not Chrome that was the problem as much as: ... the way Google has rammed it down the troat of the Internet ... the way Google keep sabotaging other browsers from the server side (yep, ask the Edge team about YouTube or Firefox users about GSuite) ... the way a number of developers has picked up these bad habits and forget (or "f…
I remember when Chrome launched. And the cheers that followed. Finally, someone was doing something about the complete mess that browsers were in. So "ramming it down the throat of the internet"... not so much. It was eagerly adopted by everyone because the only alternatives at the time were IE (with it's curious off-standard interpretation of... well...everything) and Firefox (which at the time was unusably slow and…
I never preferred Chrome myself but I welcomed it.
> So "ramming it down the throat of the internet"... not so much.
That was later when they started to add it to Java JRE downloads and what not.
> and Firefox (which at the time was unusably slow and difficult).
I'm kind of impatient with computers but the difference between Firefox and Chrome was always to small for me to care about compared to what I had to let go to move away from Firefox.
> It's a huge shame that we've got to this point with it, because it has been the driving force behind the massive improvement in browsers over the last dozen years.
According to many of us it has also been a driving force behind making the web less cross browser friendly.
> It's like watching an old friend being forced to humiliate themselves to keep a job :(
More like my friend who became boss and started taking advantage of it until finally a number of old friends are speaking out agains him.
Sorry, but this is a very weak article. First, not having competition does not make one a monopoly. It's anti-competitive (unfair) practices that make one a monopoly. IE, now that had the form of a monopoly, in its day. Then, he goes on to ignore WHATWG, which is the real authority, and is comprised of Apple, Mozilla, Google, Microsoft. I don't follow closely enough, but I'd be surprised to learn that Google has outs…
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Amazon's anti-trust paradox by Lina Khan hit the nail on the head a few years ago. When anti-trust moved towards the chicago school logic of judging merely based on price rather than taking market structure and power into account, we really screwed ourselves over. We've really only got ourselves to blame for elevating consumer satisfaction above all else and losing sight of the long term.
Yes, the original definition of monopoly that created the Sherman act was all about control of the supply chain. In the late 1800s, the railroads pretty much controlled everything from the coal mine to the hotels at every station. Completed control of the supply chain, this is what Google, Facebook and Amazon are doing right now on the internet. A monopoly isn't about consumer it's about market control. We need to mo…
The main problem I have with the predominant discussions around antitrust in contemporary internet software is that they largely ignore one quality that truly makes something a monopoply. That is, truly onerous monopolies don't just own a vast majority of some market share. They hamper the ability to switch to another product. Facebook, Google Search and Chrome, the most discussed products in current antitrust discus…
Interesting how you left out the biggest issue at hand and didn't mention it once: Android > Without Google Services and the Google Play Store, it’s a brick. They’ve mastered separation of the strategic openness of Android with the accompanying strategic closed-ness of everything that runs on it and makes it actually worth something.
The main problem I have with the predominant discussions around antitrust in contemporary internet software is that they largely ignore one quality that truly makes something a monopoply. That is, truly onerous monopolies don't just own a vast majority of some market share. They hamper the ability to switch to another product. Facebook, Google Search and Chrome, the most discussed products in current antitrust discus…
I think it is prudent if we are constantly vigilant and detect monopolistic behaviors ASAP. Why wait till the entity truly becomes a monopoly and has enough power to topple governments?