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The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

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Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#671

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

Jensson wrote: post #601
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: Google's attempt at casually turning every user into a renter of their own devices via Web Environment Integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity under the false pretense of protecting sites against bots. Google is continuously implementing more and more draconic control of users and their hardware, and they keep using security as the argument. It is now de facto impossible to r…

> Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android. Then Apple should need to sell ios.

I firmly believe that there should be no vertical integration between hardware and OS manufacturers for general purpose computing, so yes, I hold that position as well. Having private control over your general purpose computing device should be considered a human right. Apple has a similar control over their hardware and software stacks, but they have been like this from the beginning and have never pretended that the users actually owned their devices.

General purpose computing devices are so ubiquitous in society that accepting that private companies have total control over how they are used should be considered a democratic issue.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#672

Post by hakfoo »

bloppe wrote: post #439
bo1024 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling might not make business sense for Google or for Chrome, but it makes a ton of sense for the American public. Google is using Chrome to benefit advertisers, data brokers, and surveillance over users. Exhibit: the manifest v2 / Ublock Origin saga. And this is huge because so many other browsers use Chromium or its engine under the hood. Google can also use Chrome to push user-unfriendly web standards or de-fact…

The problem is that it doesn't make business sense for anybody else to buy Chrome. Bare in mind that 99% of Chrome is the free Chromium open source project, so you're not buying any sort of technological asset. You're just buying a big pre-existing user base, which would be extremely difficult to monetize without making the product much worse, although I'm sure Microsoft or Facebook would be happy to give that a go.…

The right answer is to nationalize it. Set up some sort of independent non-profit steering committee, and maybe redirect some of the massive savings Elon has pulled out of his ass to fund the actual core development. That solves the "who spends $1b per year on development if not an adtech" problem. If the US was a functioning state right now, I might suggest making it an international organization to encourage buy in from developers and backers outside our borders.

Browsers are one of the most critical pieces of modern software infrastructure, both from a security-footprint perspective and as a vehicle for (mis-)information delivery, so maybe they're too important for ANY commercial entity to use them as a bludgeon to for their agenda.

If they no longer control the core project, then Google (or Microsoft) have a much harder job doing self-serving stuff. They could nuke Manifest v2 in THEIR Chromium derivative, but core Chromium isn't going to give it up-- the Operas and Vivaldis of the world don't have to spend their limited resources trying to unwind the change to keep a desired feature.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#673

Post by exodust »

paulddraper wrote: post #608
exodust wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don’t find a site on Google, to you, it doesn’t exist What do you mean "find a site"? Are you saying the user has a website in mind they've visited before? Or are you saying the user doesn't have a website in mind, and is looking for "any website about XYZ?" I don't think your claim is valid. At what point does the user conclude something "doesn't exist"? Users never reach such a conclusion, in part because…

It might exist, but if you can’t find it on Google via keywords, it might as well not exist. Does that make sense?

> can’t find it on Google via keywords

Can't find what? Are you saying people are using Google to search for things they've misplaced? At what point is the user thinking "I can't find what I'm looking for?"

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#674

Post by exodust »

sweeter wrote: post #501
exodust wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you don’t find a site on Google, to you, it doesn’t exist What do you mean "find a site"? Are you saying the user has a website in mind they've visited before? Or are you saying the user doesn't have a website in mind, and is looking for "any website about XYZ?" I don't think your claim is valid. At what point does the user conclude something "doesn't exist"? Users never reach such a conclusion, in part because…

How many people get past the first page? I'd wager a guess its under 3%. It could be 20 results or an infinite amount, it wouldn't make a single bit of difference. It is a fact that google gets to control who and what shows up in a search, and they put paying entries at the top. There are many problems with this. They have also de-listed websites from google search, and are at a high risk of complying with any govern…

That's an answer to a different question. Italian restaurants might use the first page of their menu for pizza. Do customers who want pasta conclude pasta "doesn't exist" because it's not listed on first page?

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#675

Post by re-thc »

rchaud wrote: post #614
bpicolo wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you all forget the web pre chrome? Google and Chrome forced browser vendors to do better by standards in the first place. Google’s stewardship forced browser vendors to compete like never before.

I don't remember Google doing that. What I remember from that time is a browser war happening between the power players in mobile with iOS, Android and Windows Phone. I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009, which led to browser vendors harmonizing their feature set. We still needed jQuery to ensure cross-browser support, and floats and p…

> I don't remember Google doing that.

They didn't

> I would attribute the improvement in browser standards support to the finalization of the HTML5 spec by the W3C in 2009

I would attribute it to IE losing market share. It was always IE... and .

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#676

Post by robertlagrant »

keepamovin wrote: post #45
robertlagrant wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm okay with Windows being owned by Microsoft which is (was) basically the same thing in a way Windows is much worse by most metrics. I can't fork Windowsium and build (and sell) my own fully-compatible, 99.999999% R&D paid for by Microsoft, OS. > This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you lot...but it is just an idea It is a bit vague :) In that: who pays for it? Who decides what features are in or ou…

I think the control should be in the hands of the public. Stewarded by a public organization with government funds. What do you think?

> I think the control should be in the hands of the public. Stewarded by a public organization with government funds. What do you think?

I don't know. I think today the EU could set up EUBrowser, a fork of Chromium, and start work. Almost all the hard work has been done by OSS contributions. Google engineers, and Google-funded things such as Firefox. They could live off that comfortably while providing a more locked-down browser if they liked.

A more meaningful, less parasitic option would take longer: the EU (or whomoever) writes a browser from scratch. Then they could decide exactly what goes into it, and have independent input into standards etc.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#677

Post by dcow »

Jensson wrote: post #601
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: Google's attempt at casually turning every user into a renter of their own devices via Web Environment Integrity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity under the false pretense of protecting sites against bots. Google is continuously implementing more and more draconic control of users and their hardware, and they keep using security as the argument. It is now de facto impossible to r…

> Chrome is not enough at all; Google also needs to sell off Android. Then Apple should need to sell ios.

In the thread of the argument, Apple does not hold a monopoly on web advertising, though.

Apple’s entire business is building compute devices.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#678

Post by paulddraper »

exodust wrote: post #673
paulddraper wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might exist, but if you can’t find it on Google via keywords, it might as well not exist. Does that make sense?

> can’t find it on Google via keywords Can't find what? Are you saying people are using Google to search for things they've misplaced? At what point is the user thinking "I can't find what I'm looking for?"

No, I'm saying they use Google to navigate.

If they want a lasagna recipe, they use Google. If (for whatever reason), a particular lasagna recipe is not findable via this method, it for all intents and purposes doesn't exist.

I hope I'm making myself clear.

Re: The DOJ still wants Google to sell off Chrome

#679

Post by pjerem »

kweingar wrote: post #320

Here's something I don't understand. If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS, you open Settings, tap Safari, tap Search Engine, and tap your preferred search engine. Not many users do this, and the conclusion is that the default has an unfair advantage. If you want to make Chrome your desktop browser, you open the default browser, search for Chrome, click the correct result, download the installer,…

> If you want to switch your search engine for Safari on iOS, you open Settings, tap Safari, tap Search Engine, and tap your preferred search engine. Not many users do this, and the conclusion is that the default has an unfair advantage.

As long as you don’t want a search engine that is not on the Apple’s authored list.

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