The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

Post by techpineapple » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #169

techpineapple wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base.” Most Arguments in both directions are basically unprovable and amount to propaganda at this point. Degrees matter. Saying “people voted for this”, which both sides say with different directionality, is mostly away to convince people to either s…

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Post by notatoad » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

maxclark wrote: post #132

First I don't believe this is an effective remedy to break up a Google monopoly, but I have no influence on the DOJ. I'm curious though, if Google can no longer pay browsers for search engine traffic what is the business model that will sustain development and advancement in the space? How does a non Google owned Chrome support itself and continue development? What happens to all the applications that rely on Chrome…

Post by swat535 » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 10:26 PM UTC

theptip wrote: post #160

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.

Post by sumeno » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 10:28 PM UTC

realitysballs wrote: post #167

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?

Think about difference between Brave and Chrome. Both Chromium browsers but Brave is much less intrusive and exploitative of user data. More Brave and less Chrome would allow average user greater privacy and less reliance on large corporations perhaps

Post by hinkley » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 10:42 PM UTC

pavon wrote: post #158

wmf wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 restru…