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The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#141

Post by crop_rotation »

user3939382 wrote: post #134

If you look carefully at the Chromium project, it’s made up of teams that specialize in different components. The majority of the members of those teams are in turn Google employees. Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those teams. I don’t see how a DOJ decision against Google would change any of that. Ban Google employees from participating in the project? And then who would replace them?

I am not sure why you are being downvoted. This just means existing OS monopolies of Apple and Microsoft are given entire control of their kingdoms with no web landscape to challenge them a teeny tiny bit.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#142

Post by nashashmi »

crop_rotation wrote: post #137
cubefox wrote: post #130

Google has to sell Chrome, a completely optional browser, and stop supporting Firefox, the best Chrome alternative, while Apple is allowed to completely lock down iOS without allowing installing alternatives to Safari, or any third party app stores. Not to mention that Apple for years exploited its dominant market position in the US by resisting messaging RCS Android compatibility, and pressuring teens into either bu…

Google is just incompetent at PR and legal. That is how Epic won against Google and lost against Apple, even though Android is far far more open than iOS.

Incompetency is a blessing for users.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#143

Post by flanked-evergl »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #102
modulus1 wrote: post #96

A company owning a web browser isn't the problem. A company owning a web browser, OS and search engine shouldn't be a problem either. I don't know why the remedy can't actually address the problem, and the DOJ can't move more quickly to address antitrust across the industry. This feels like randomly cutting a baby in half, while the rest of the thieves, even those in the same family, are not deterred.

The problem is an ads company owning a web browser, OS, and search engine, and using that control over how users interact with the internet to outcompete everyone else. You left out Google's raison d'etre from your statement.

That is not what is happening. I use Android, Chrome, and Google Search because the alternatives are quite poor. All of those things work better with alternatives than any competition. Android is the most open mobile OS, Chrome is the most open and non-coercive browser, Google Search works great with all other OS's and browsers.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#144

Post by blueboo »

cubefox wrote: post #130

Google has to sell Chrome, a completely optional browser, and stop supporting Firefox, the best Chrome alternative, while Apple is allowed to completely lock down iOS without allowing installing alternatives to Safari, or any third party app stores. Not to mention that Apple for years exploited its dominant market position in the US by resisting messaging RCS Android compatibility, and pressuring teens into either bu…

Instant, universal, and immaculately-fair is the real impossible standard. Your line of thought has long been in the arsenal in defense of inaction

let's permit the firefighters to leave the firehouse even though they can't tend to all the fires simultaneously

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#145

Post by azinman2 »

manquer wrote: post #110
ronnier wrote: post #103

It’s a big world. Does breaking up google give the Asian giants an advantage? Wonder if China breaks up their large tech companies?

Advantage where ? Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) . Global tech companies do not compete in China, the market is brutal for non Chinese companies with level of espionage, theft, sabotage that is allowed. It is really small world for big tech, the same 5-10 companies dominate most of the world in most frequently used consumer products, and using that domi…

> Chinese tech companies are not competing outside China with one notable exception of TikTok (1) .

This is absolutely not true. Most phones in Africa are Chinese now. Chinese internet companies are all over Asia outside of Japan/SK. Chinese cars (EVs, which arguably are tech), are now world-wide.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#146

Post by wmf »

user3939382 wrote: post #134

If you look carefully at the Chromium project, it’s made up of teams that specialize in different components. The majority of the members of those teams are in turn Google employees. Presumably they have the best qualifications to be on those teams. I don’t see how a DOJ decision against Google would change any of that. Ban Google employees from participating in the project? And then who would replace them?

All the people who work on Chrome would go with it.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#147

Post by jimnotgym »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #131
jcfrei wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If chrome is no longer owned by Google I'll use it. That's the reason I switched to firefox in the first place.

chrome no longer supports effective ad-blocking extensions.

Isn't that because Google doesn't want them upsetting their advertising business. Breaking up seems like it will help this

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#148

Post by pessimizer »

floydnoel wrote: post #76
keepamovin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's okay. Yes, it is just an idea, specifically of making it public. I think the government should pay for it. What do you think?

so every 4 years a new group can shift the priorities completely and what should be a technical challenge becomes a political one, dominated by those with money. I'm sure before long you would be required to input your government ID to use it. I am not sure a worse idea is even possible.

> I'm sure before long you would be required to input your government ID to use it.

The government does not need to maintain a browser to enforce this rule. It would simply tell people that logging into the internet requires government ID now, and the ISPs would make it so or be shut down.

The government could however, if it maintained a browser, guarantee that the internet would be accessible without a government ID, just by not putting that feature in their browser. A government browser would be subject to the constitution, debate, public comment, and legislation; rather than having to sue companies to get anything done.

Google, Apple, and Mozilla are not protecting you from the government. They're intimately financially interconnected with each other, and can decide what the entire world is going to have to tolerate on the web on a group chat. Without government intervention (even if just to collect bribes), they'd all just probably merge and enslave the planet.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#149

Post by wmf »

cubefox wrote: post #130

Google has to sell Chrome, a completely optional browser, and stop supporting Firefox, the best Chrome alternative, while Apple is allowed to completely lock down iOS without allowing installing alternatives to Safari, or any third party app stores. Not to mention that Apple for years exploited its dominant market position in the US by resisting messaging RCS Android compatibility, and pressuring teens into either bu…

You're ignoring the antitrust cases against Apple which may seek similar remedies.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#150

Post by hinkley »

wmf wrote: post #123
hinkley wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah fuck. Welp. They had a chance to be default alive and they fucked it by trying to spend the money on new initiatives instead of just spending the interest payments from an endowment.

Weren't the new initiatives pretty small compared to Firefox development?

At the moment when I got upset about this, they were trying to do an awful lot, and it felt like the money was burning a hole in their pockets.

I know they cut back a little but maybe they’ve sobered up since? Haven’t had the heart to look again.

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