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

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

#591
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 A…

> that Google Search is so good because it gets so much search traffic and, critically, user interaction data

If Bing's market share is 4%, then Bing still gets tons of user interaction data.

Bing gets something like 100M queries per day. That's more than enough data.

Microsoft has all the choice. They have the money. They can invest, like Google has invested and continues to invest. You don't get these things for free.

So yes, it is absolutely a choice. A small startup may be disadvantaged. But not Microsoft with over 15 years of user data from Bing.

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

#592
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you define as "flourished"? Chrome won in part because it was better than Internet Explorer, but ironically, the internet was better back when IE had majority market share. Today, 99% of internet traffic goes to a handful of sites/apps, and the vast majority of the ad revenue on the internet goes to a handful ad companies. The internet is a SEO spam shit hole crafted in service of Google's easily gamed rankin…

> Google effectively owns the internet What are you even saying? ChatGPT - a product that was launched in 2021 - is eating up internet search game. People have switched to that in throves, and Google can do nothing. You're mistakenly assuming that Google has a lot of power, when in fact, they had none. People were using it because it was the superior product at the time. And now there's a better product, and people h…

> What are you even saying? ChatGPT - a product that was launched in 2021 - is eating up internet search game. People have switched to that in throves, and Google can do nothing.

If ChatGPT really is stealing significant market share from Google, that's EVEN MORE of a reason to break up Google's monopoly. It's further proof that they are a monopoly, because one of the smoking guns of a monopoly is inability to innovate. Why should the market be held back by allowing Google to stay in the game when they're clearly not competitive? Their anti competitive behavior is preventing other, more innovative companies from being created.

> You're mistakenly assuming that Google has a lot of power, when in fact, they had none. People were using it because it was the superior product at the time.

I can't tell if this is a troll or not. I'm going to reply anyways, even though it probably is.

Google had, and currently has, all the power. The only 'lever' they don't have is control over internet access (although they do offer ISP services in some regions). I don't know what you mean by saying otherwise? By owning Search, Chrome, Android, and their ad network they have closed loop. Building a good search engine requires data, Search/Chrome/Android provide that data, and Chrome/Android + their illegal search deals funnel users into Search, which provides more data. That's why even this shitty half-assed remedy is requiring them to share some search data with rivals.

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

#595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get an acceptable answer maybe about 60% of the time, assuming most of your questions are really simple. The other 40% of the time it's complete nonsense dressed up as a reasonable answer.

Have you used Grok or ChatGPT in the last year? I can't remember the last time I got a nonsense response. Do you have a recent example?

Today, I asked Google if there was a constant time string comparison algorithm in the JRE. It told me "no, but you can roll your own". Then I perused the links and found that MessageDigest.isEqual exists.

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

#596
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…

> With the rise of ChatGPT (I barely use Google anymore)

This is interesting to me in that I find Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude much better for coding / planning work than ChatGPT

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

#597
post #585
post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I have ever seen "AI overview" not hallucinate. Granted, I only end up at google on other people's computers or on some fresh install where I haven't configured search yet.

> Granted, I only end up at google on other people's computers or on some fresh install where I haven't configured search yet. Which is exactly my point. A bunch of people doing that to conform with the shibboleth identity of the phone in their pocket and then posting strong opinions about the product they don't (or at least claim not to) use is an echo chamber and not a discussion. You only get the upvotes in these…

> the shibboleth identity of the phone in their pocket

Someone here has religion, and it’s not me. I don’t use Google search because it’s a terrible product and we finally have other options. As for AI, there are dozens of options, and it does not take many examples to see how bad Ai Overview is. Gemini 2.5 Pro, however, is in my tool belt.

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

#599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easy to assume it's always accurate when it generally is. But it's not always. So like a lot of the internet? I don’t really understand this idea that LLMs have to be right 100% of the time to be useful. Very little of the web currently meets that standard and society uses it every day.

It's a marketing issue. LLMs are being marketed similar to Tesla's FSD - claims of PhD-level intelligence, AGI, artificial superintelligence, etc. set the expectation that LLMs should be smarter than (most of) us. Why would we have any reason to doubt the claims of something that is smarter than us? Especially when it is very confident about the way it is saying it.

That's fair. The LLM hype has been next level, but it's only rivaled by the 'it never works for anything and will make you stupid' crowd.

Both are wrong in my experience.

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

#600
post #597
post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Granted, I only end up at google on other people's computers or on some fresh install where I haven't configured search yet. Which is exactly my point. A bunch of people doing that to conform with the shibboleth identity of the phone in their pocket and then posting strong opinions about the product they don't (or at least claim not to) use is an echo chamber and not a discussion. You only get the upvotes in these…

> the shibboleth identity of the phone in their pocket Someone here has religion, and it’s not me. I don’t use Google search because it’s a terrible product and we finally have other options. As for AI, there are dozens of options, and it does not take many examples to see how bad Ai Overview is. Gemini 2.5 Pro, however, is in my tool belt.

> I don’t use Google search [...]

I know. But you're posting confidently (along with a ton of other people) in a subthread about Google search anyway, making statements about its behavior which you straight up admit to be unqualified to make. And I'm calling out the disconnect, because someone has to.

No one in an echo chamber thinks they're in an echo chamber. This is 100% an echo chamber.

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