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Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

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Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#21

Post by WilliamEdward »

ishan1121 wrote: post #2

Google is a clear monopoly, there's no doubt about it. It has a 70% browser market share, 70% market share in the search ecosystem. Even though their service is good and people are happy, I think they need to be broken down for the sake of keeping an open internet. Even Facebook for that matter. That's my opinion

Im surprised facebook was an afterthought for you. I immediately think of facebook whenever i think of bad things involving the internet. Google doesn't even really cross my mind, it's just the most prominent internet thing so of course it's bad in some ways, that's just entropy.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#22

Post by replax »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

For example it used to be the case that whatever you downloaded from google or 3rd parties (google earth, picasa, oracle java etc.) automatically installed google chrome by default and set it as your default browser. This is on par with IE toolbar spamming in installers.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#23

Post by glandium »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

Many app installers, including Adobe Flash, would install Chrome along whatever they install. In the case of Flash, there was a checkbox to disable it, but if you don't pay attention, you don't see it. And I think in that case, you might even end up with Chrome as your default browser.

The most interesting part in all this is that the Adobe Flash you just downloaded and installed is not even used by Chrome, which ships its own.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#24

Post by grenoire »

amelius wrote: post #19
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

Yes, also see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)

Err... I don't see either of these are relevant to the Chrome situation, given that the competitors are (and have been) also free. These aren't applicable for markets of free goods and services.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#25

Post by dageshi »

bad_user wrote: post #5

In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important. Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is…

The web is a mature platform at this point, it's not really surprising everything has consolidated towards a single implementation, the economics of actually producing websites dictates that's an inevitability.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#26

Post by josteink »

bad_user wrote: post #5

In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important. Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is…

> In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing...

And paid lots of third party software vendors to bundle it as a drive-by installation 100% malware style.

There’s a good reason many of my technically inclined friends still today don’t trust Chrome.

It’s malware after all.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#27

Post by bad_user »

writepub wrote: post #11
bad_user wrote: post #5

In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. However the current situation is worrisome, because alternative implementations are dying and in the case of the web, diversity is important. Both Opera and Microsoft's Edge are now powered by Chromium. Chromium is a project controlled by Google. Its redeeming quality, in terms of its open source nature, is…

I do not trust Google, but I do not trust Mozilla either. An overwhelming majority of Mozilla funding comes from Google, Microsoft, and other giants it directly competes with. Added to that, many of it's battles (at the W3C and like) prioritize philosophy over customer satisfaction and ease of use. 99.9% of browser users don't care or don't even know if their browser is open source - what they want is convenience and…

Yes, but they also made moves that are against Google's interests, repeatedly. If you have better ideas on how to monetize a browser, I'm sure they are open to suggestions.

As for their "battles at the W3C", you mean DRM and H.264, the patent-encumbered video codec?

The philosophy you're talking about is probably why they still have that 5% of the market, otherwise they would be irrelevant ;-)

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#28

Post by bduerst »

ishan1121 wrote: post #2

Google is a clear monopoly, there's no doubt about it. It has a 70% browser market share, 70% market share in the search ecosystem. Even though their service is good and people are happy, I think they need to be broken down for the sake of keeping an open internet. Even Facebook for that matter. That's my opinion

Just having dominant marketshare, especially in the presence of easily-accessible competitors (e.g. Safari, Mozilla, Opera, etc.), is definitively not a monopoly.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#29

Post by fouc »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

I would argue the 'auto update' feature is actually a bit of a dark pattern. (I believe chrome was the first major browser to start this trend?)

It is ostensibly for security and benefits developers because of less fragmentation. But it actually hurts users in the long run because of the centralizing effect. It also enables chrome to sneak in features that users wouldn't necessarily accept.

Re: Google’s Chrome Becomes Web ‘Gatekeeper’ and Rivals Complain

#30

Post by dTal »

bad_user wrote: post #18
dTal wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of Chrome, you can't blame Google. They made a good browser, did some marketing and it got popular. Where "did some marketing" equals "unethically abused monopoly position to aggressively push through dark patterns", sure. I think I can still blame them for that.

I've seen dark patterns from Google, but in the case of Chrome I have a hard time remembering any. Do you mean that they advertised for Chrome on their properties? Advertising on your own property is legitimate in my book. And simple advertising isn't a "dark pattern". Or do you mean something else?

That, and they paid money to surreptitiously bundle it with other software. Chrome is notorious for suddenly being mysteriously installed on relatives' computers: https://imgur.com/NIZk9Pd

And advertising something on your own property sure sounds reasonable, but I think it's a slightly different story when "your own property" is "the de facto homepage of the internet". That's what I meant by "abusing monopoly position".

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