The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome • Hacker News Board

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#151

Post by IncreasePosts » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

jcfrei wrote: post #99

qwerty456127 wrote: post #84

> The Justice Department also kept a Biden-era proposal that seeks to ban Google from paying companies like Apple, other smartphone manufacturers and Mozilla to make its search engine the default on their phones and browsers. RIP Firefox?

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

Who do you think is going to buy chrome? And don't you think they are going to want to recoup their investment?

I suspect chrome will get far less consumer friendly than chrome currently is if it is sold.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#152

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:21 PM UTC

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…

The iOS app store monopoly is unreal. Epic's case should have been a slam dunk, they got removed from the app store by offering a discount if people went through their processor instead of Apple's, proving harm to the consumer by simply expecting less than 30% for simply processing a payment.

People complain about whataboutism, but the Apple versus almost any other 'monopoly' is insane. You can switch browsers within the next 30s, you can't install an app from a third party vendor ever on iOS. [1]

[1] Yes I know you can pay $100 a year, and then compile your own/open source apps weekly and move them to your device. No this is not a reasonable solution.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#153

Post by ApolloFortyNine » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:22 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #149

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.

Epic lost their's, while ironically winning the Google one... Where you were always able to install a third party app store, they just didn't let you do it through the official store.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#154

Post by surajrmal » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:22 PM UTC

batperson wrote: post #115

I can't find information on what would happen to Chromium, would google need to hand it over too? That's probably more important than the fate of Chrome.

The only thing being specific is chrome the product launches. Selling of the pixel phone business wouldn't require also selling android for instance, so arguably its the same.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#155

Post by pclmulqdq » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

flanked-evergl wrote: post #143

pclmulqdq wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't matter why you use any of this software. What matters is what it does to the ads market. This is not 1999 and this is not Microsoft. Google's product isn't software. It's the attention of its users.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#156

Post by nashashmi » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:23 PM UTC

Keep Google Chrome. Separate search. Sell it to private equity. (I bet DoJ didn’t think about that whammy.)

And start charging for everything else out there like maps, street view, and browser. And buy cloudflare while at it. Push themselves into everything related to connectivity and internet properties.

The search business is the cash flow that is being a thorn in the side of Google. And it doesn’t even make sense in its vision anymore.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#157

Post by surajrmal » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

lewdwig wrote: post #91

All that rather pathetic grovelling and kowtowing to Trump, for naught.

Do note that this will take years to play out. Nothing is certain yet.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#158

Post by pavon » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

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?

Yes. And other than Firefox, Mozilla was spending money in two ways. First creating new paid products in an attempt to have revenue in case the Google money ever went away. None of them were successful enough to meet this goal, but it was a good goal. Secondly, they spent their charity donations on activism work. The way they are structured they legally could not spend that money on Firefox. They would need to restructure as a non-profit corporation (not tax deductible charity) to accept donations to spend on Firefox, like their Thunderbird subsidiary. I hope they do so now, and at least attempt to support Firefox on donations.

The truth is that browsers are a very complicated, very quickly moving, and very security sensitive piece of software. They spent all that money on Firefox rather than saving it because if they didn't Firefox would have fallen behind Chrome and Safari and it wouldn't be worth using today.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#159

Post by modulus1 » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:25 PM UTC

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.

MS and Apple have the same thing, they're just less successful. Just a browser and an OS was previously seen as antitrust (and it looks like MS is being anti-competitive in this space still). Just a browser and a search engine can allow anti-competitive behavior. Or just a search engine and an ads platform...

The problem is the anti-competitive behavior. Businesses are generally rational actors, so clearly our system isn't working. It's unclear what the boundaries are until years in court, and even then it only applies to a single company.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#160

Post by theptip » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 8:26 PM UTC

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?

But we are not discussing Chromium. Google’s browser is Chrome, and that product has search exclusivity deals that have been deemed monopolistic.

Google could divest the Chrome product and keep contributing to Chromium, but the value proposition is really unclear when that OSS investment doesn’t buy you billions of dollars of browser lock-in value.