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Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

cnbc.com

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Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#451

Post by mquander »

camillomiller wrote: post #439
supernova87a wrote: post #56

By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases (and we have so many of public interest lately) never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read, right in the story. (and another user here kindly did that for us below: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223... ) It seems such a simple step (they must have been using the rul…

As a reporter, I can tell you that your comment stems from a common fallacy: y’all think you know better than reporters what our jobs are and what the dynamics of our publishing platform entail. For some reason, everyone feels like they would know how to be a journalist better than the actual professionals. That said, reporters have most probably nothing to do with what you’re decrying. Linking policies are not the r…

I sympathize with how annoying it must be to have other people messing up your work, but also, if your name is at the top of the page, and there's not really any other way for readers to know anyone in particular that is taking responsibility for any specific detail on that page, it's obviously going to be your reputation on the line to some extent.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#452

Post by scotty79 »

IshKebab wrote: post #116
stackskipton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels like judge was looking for any excuse not to apply harsh penalty and since Google brought up AI as competitor, the judge accepted it as acceptable excuse for very minor penalty.

AI is a competitor. You know how StackOverflow is dead because AI provided an alternative? That's happening in search too. You might think "but ChatGPT isn't a search engine", and that's true. It can't handle all queries you might use a search engine for, e.g. if you want to find a particular website. But there are many many queries that it can handle. Here's just a few from my recent history: * How do I load a share…

Google does AI.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#453

Post by szszrk »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #104
supernova87a wrote: post #56

By the way, a pet peeve of mine right now is that reporters covering court cases (and we have so many of public interest lately) never seem to simply paste the link to the online PDF decision/ruling for us all to read, right in the story. (and another user here kindly did that for us below: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.223... ) It seems such a simple step (they must have been using the rul…

Never link outside your domain has been rule #1 of the ad-driven business for years now. Once users leave your page, they become exponentially less likely to load more ad-ridden pages from your website. Ironically this is also why there is so much existential fear about AI in the media. LLMs will do to them what they do to primary sources (and more likely just cut them out of the loop). This Google story will get a l…

That is my primitive way of distinguishing actual journalism and honest blogging from ad-crap and paywall traps.

If they actually link to other websites and their sources - it's worth my time. If they don't - it's a honeypot.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#454

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #181
Hansenq wrote: post #31

This seems like a very sensible and logical conclusion by the judge to me. An exclusive contract with Apple/Samsung isn't great, but even Apple testified that they would not have accepted any other searcch engine because everyone else was worse. You can't make restrictions on what Apple is allowed to do because Google violated some law--if Apple wants to make Google the default, they should be allowed to do so! The b…

> Google started, developed, and built Chrome into the best browser available today I don’t think this is as settled as you imply. I tend to like Google products, and do almost everything in the Google ecosystem. But my browser is normally brave or Firefox, because better Adblock is so so impactful. I feel that chrome is a valid alternative, but that no browser is really clearly “the best”. In your view, what is it t…

Anecdotally, I've seen many geeks (who certainly don't make their browser choice based on an annoying popup, and are generally more on the anti-Google side) use Chrome rather than Firefox, at conferences etc. (but this is mostly 5+ years ago). Not the majority, but plenty of well-informed opinionated people.

I believe especially back then, Chrome performance was significantly better than Firefox. On Android, Firefox was so slow and unpolished that the ad blocking couldn't make up for it (and even that wasn't available from the start).

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#455

Post by IshKebab »

skinkestek wrote: post #445
IshKebab wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is a competitor. You know how StackOverflow is dead because AI provided an alternative? That's happening in search too. You might think "but ChatGPT isn't a search engine", and that's true. It can't handle all queries you might use a search engine for, e.g. if you want to find a particular website. But there are many many queries that it can handle. Here's just a few from my recent history: * How do I load a share…

> You know how StackOverflow is dead because AI provided an alternative? That's happening in search too. Stack Overflow isn’t dead because of AI. It’s dead because they spent years ignoring user feedback and then doubled down by going after respected, unpaid contributors like Monica. Would they have survived AI? Hard to say. But the truth is, they were already busy burning down their own community long before AI show…

> Stack Overflow isn’t dead because of AI. It’s dead because they spent years ignoring user feedback

It is dead because of both of those things. Everyone hated Stackoverflow's moderation, but kept using it because they didn't have a good alternative until AI.

> When AI arrived I'd already been waiting for years for an alternative that didn’t aggressively shut down real-world questions

Exactly.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#456

Post by tgv »

Hansenq wrote: post #31

This seems like a very sensible and logical conclusion by the judge to me. An exclusive contract with Apple/Samsung isn't great, but even Apple testified that they would not have accepted any other searcch engine because everyone else was worse. You can't make restrictions on what Apple is allowed to do because Google violated some law--if Apple wants to make Google the default, they should be allowed to do so! The b…

> You can't make restrictions on what Apple is allowed to do because Google violated some law

I think you can, under the assumption that Apple's decision wasn't independent/voluntary. At least, that seems how it works for people in cases of coercion, conspiracy or impairment.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#457

Post by keeda »

crazygringo wrote: post #203
benoau wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bing by itself reportedly doesn't even gross that much, overall $20 billion represents about a quarter of Microsoft's entire annual profit. Microsoft already decided it wasn't viable to spend that much to compete, and the rest of the search market (including AI) need not apply.

But the point is that's Microsoft's choice. They have the money to compete and jumpstart Bing with default placements and reap the ad dollars and build Bing into a serious competitor. If they don't want to compete because they think investing money in Xbox will have a higher return, that's their decision (and maybe their mistake). It's not Google's fault.

What is missing in this discussion is the fact -- explicitly called out by the court in the opinion, see e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45109999 -- that Google Search is so good because it gets so much search traffic and, critically, user interaction data such as clicks, dwell time and even hovers on search results, which it mines to figure out better rankings.

Unless competitors get that kind of traffic AND user behavior insights, their results will always be worse.

And as long as their results are worse, 1) their revenues will always be worse, which will 2) make it prohibitively expensive to even try to bid for such placements, which in any case 3) would be shot down by Apple because their results are not "good enough".

It's a Catch-22 from which the only escape is making a risky 20-billion-per-year traffic acquisition bet (on top of the billions already being invested) that they can get all that traffic and user behavior data and improve their search engine quickly enough to make the results good enough to drive enough revenue, all the while fighting the tendency of people to use Google anyway simply out of habit.

I don't think it's much of a choice.

The proposed remedies do talk about sharing search and user interaction data though, so if that survives appeals, it might help level the field a bit.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#458

Post by warkdarrior »

brookst wrote: post #421
dragonwriter wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it can't be exclusive, that means other providers must be allowed to pay to be default on some portion of installs? If so, wouldn't that result in the basis of payment changing to a basis which takes into account the number or (e.g., advertising demographics-based) desirability of the default installs that Google receives, rather than a global amount based on what is expected to be aggregate number and desirabilit…

Forbidding Google from requiring exclusivity is not the same thing as mandating that Apple accept payments from others. Google can afford to pay more per user/click because of scale economies; their cost per user/click is lower. So, great, Google will pay Apple $20/user/year on a nonexclusive basis, and Firefox or whoever are free to match or exceed that, so long as they don't mind losing money on every user.

So the problem is that Firefox does not find its users to be as valuable as Google's?

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#459

Post by tgv »

doug_durham wrote: post #158
skinnymuch wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vast majority of users are not technically literate enough to know what is a good browser. They would have no clue why Chrome is better or not. They definitely don’t know what Blink is.

What is your point?

That the argument "Chrome is better because so many people use it" is, frankly, bullshit. Which it is.

Re: Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

#460

Post by lazide »

nerpderp82 wrote: post #348
bc569a80a344f9c wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is easy to see a near future where an AI agent just retrieves and summarizes the case for you. And does a much better job too. I am significantly less confident that an LLM is going to be any good at putting a raw source like a court ruling PDF into context and adequately explain to readers why - and what details - of the decision matter, and what impact they will have. They can probably do an OK job summari…

> significantly less confident that an LLM is going to be any good at putting a raw source like a court ruling PDF into context and adequately explain to readers why You should play with LLMs this week.

It’ll just link to some random unrelated court ruling.
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