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Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

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Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#151

Post by dzikimarian »

wordpad wrote: post #98
int_19h wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that whole "war on cookies" where they keep pitching replacements that basically let Google (and only Google) do all the same things, so that they can then gatekeep it and pay others for the privilege of accessing some limited subset of that data. Regardless of why Google made Chrome originally, today, the main reason why it exists is to enable Google to track users more efficiently. And that is a bad thing.

Why is tracking a bad thing? It allows better monetization of the web which is good for everyone.

It's not. It enables free content, but most of it is crap quality.

Assume there's no ad network that tells you that user is into high-end bikes. You cannot produce cheap rage bait and then market bikes, because you'll likely miss your target audience. You have to produce good biking content and then advertise bikes to be effective.

This is basically "break for our sponsor" you see on YouTube - for me personally youtube sponsorships are way more bearable than typical ad infested "news" site

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#152

Post by Ygg2 »

OccamsMirror wrote: post #149
hkt wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: your first paragraph, this is exactly what Google does now. They maintain such an incredible pace of development and such a unilateral attitude that nobody can stop them from developing web standards even if they want to. When was the last time anyone said no to a Chrome feature and expected it everywhere else? Developers treat it as the go to to the extent that some don't even bother testing in other browsers. G…

It makes you wonder if Microsoft had given developers what they wanted, i.e. modern CSS and Javascript support, more browser features, etc., would they have actually moved off of Internet Explorer?

They did?

AJAX of jQuery fame, is extremely similar to ActiveX XmlHttpRequest.

The problem isn't XmlHttpRequest, but everything else they added/removed. Same with Google. The problem isn't they made request more secure, they made ad blocking impossible.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#153

Post by heavyset_go »

cookiengineer wrote: post #143
wordpad wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is tracking a bad thing? It allows better monetization of the web which is good for everyone.

Because tracking is inherently an anti democratic thing. See pretty much every lesson in history ever, from the Schutzstaffel of the Nazis, to worker unions being doxxed, to lobbyism. Our democracy relies on private information being secret, and any one sided party having that information is able to rule over the other. There's a reason why Putin is so successful when utilizing his FSB and SVR apparatus. The "i don't…

In the same vein, the founding of the US relied upon anonymity. The Federalist Papers, Common Sense, etc all had anonymous authors, the Fourth Amendment is in a way a response to general warrants used to persecute anonymous authors, etc.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#154

Post by mrkramer »

int_19h wrote: post #25
thomassmith65 wrote: post #10

Google is a web business, that’s their whole thing. They made a browser to invest in the web itself because what is good for the web is good for Google, and happens to be good for all of us. This is a panglossian take that belongs in the year 2005. Google is less a 'web business' than it is an 'advertising business', a 'surveillance business', and a 'finance business'. Consequently, it is false that 'what is good for…

And that whole "war on cookies" where they keep pitching replacements that basically let Google (and only Google) do all the same things, so that they can then gatekeep it and pay others for the privilege of accessing some limited subset of that data. Regardless of why Google made Chrome originally, today, the main reason why it exists is to enable Google to track users more efficiently. And that is a bad thing.

They will never be able to kill cookies unless they bribe the whole industry and make them believe Google's cookie replacement technology will bring them more ad money.

Tbh cookies are lesser evil than Google's make believe cookie replacement technology. And remember Google is not Netscape, Google is on whole another level of power and domination.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#155

Post by tgv »

phailhaus wrote: post #75
ohso4 wrote: post #9

> Users don’t pay for Chrome. There aren’t ads in Chrome. There is no direct business model for Chrome. Unlike Safari and Firefox, nobody writes checks to Chrome to make a certain search engine the default. They track you. There IS a business model for Chrome: monetizing user data.

Can you clarify? Does Chrome track you, or do websites track you using cookies stored in Chrome?

By their own admission, "not only does Google collect your name and email address, Google also collects your physical address, your exact location, your contacts, advertising data, product interaction, search, and browsing history." [1] And that's Chrome (a Safari wrapper at that moment) on iOS. You may assume they collect at least as much on platforms they own.

[1] https://techstartups.com/2021/03/18/google-finally-revealed-...

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#156

Post by stephenr »

izacus wrote: post #128
stephenr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a scenario where Google no longer control Chrome, I doubt Safari's budget is at risk, the company had nearly $400B in revenue in 2024. Courtroom testimony implied that part of the reason Apple value(s/d) the deal with Google was a "peace deal" to prevent Google from doing what Google does and forcing Safari users on Google properties, to switch to Chrome. Of all the browsers that would be affected by the loss of G…

The 400B in revenue is there to be paid out to shareholders not to pay for browser development when not needed. Apple only has a browser team because they need to keep up with parity for their OS.

That logic could be applied to every app team at Apple, or indeed every other publicly traded software company

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#157

Post by robin_reala »

snackernews wrote: post #117
robin_reala wrote: post #108

I just discovered that Google refuses to support any assistive tech on Workspaces unless the user is using Chrome: https://support.google.com/a/answer/33864 They can’t be forced to sell soon enough.

Would selling change anything? There are a lot of sites and apps that only work in Chrome that Google didn’t make.

This is monopolistic behaviour: it leverages a product (Workgroups) to force a minority group to switch to another product (Chrome). Most users of Workgroups don’t have an option to change, because it’s provided for them by their company.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#158

Post by tgv »

jmyeet wrote: post #82

This is really about paying to be the default search engine. How that goes for Google depends on the details. If nobody can pay to be the default, then it's an absolute win for Google. This would save Google billions of dollars and many of those users will use Google anyway. Google is really paying so nobody else can. If other companeis can pay to be the default, then it's a much more mixed bag. It'll hurt Firefox an…

> Selling user data doesn't seem like a sustainable business.

Did you see Google's Q4 earnings? "Google Services revenues increased 10% to $84.1 billion, reflecting the strong momentum across Google Search & other and YouTube ads." That's by using user data. If Chrome is split off into a new company, there will be buses full of wooers.

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#159

Post by tcfhgj »

wordpad wrote: post #98
int_19h wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that whole "war on cookies" where they keep pitching replacements that basically let Google (and only Google) do all the same things, so that they can then gatekeep it and pay others for the privilege of accessing some limited subset of that data. Regardless of why Google made Chrome originally, today, the main reason why it exists is to enable Google to track users more efficiently. And that is a bad thing.

Why is tracking a bad thing? It allows better monetization of the web which is good for everyone.

It's bad for everyone, considering how it increases prices and boosts consumption

Re: Google Being Forced to Sell Chrome Is Not Good for the Web

#160

Post by Gud »

mrkramer wrote: post #154
int_19h wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that whole "war on cookies" where they keep pitching replacements that basically let Google (and only Google) do all the same things, so that they can then gatekeep it and pay others for the privilege of accessing some limited subset of that data. Regardless of why Google made Chrome originally, today, the main reason why it exists is to enable Google to track users more efficiently. And that is a bad thing.

They will never be able to kill cookies unless they bribe the whole industry and make them believe Google's cookie replacement technology will bring them more ad money. Tbh cookies are lesser evil than Google's make believe cookie replacement technology. And remember Google is not Netscape, Google is on whole another level of power and domination.

What do you mean? the whole industry are happy to be on Chrome. What Google does, the rest will be either praising or be doing begrudingly.

A few of us are using Firefox. The few who remember the terror that web development was when Microsoft had the monopoly. At least they were mostly ignorant, not outright hostile towards the open web.

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