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DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

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Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#81

Post by rafram »

jcranmer wrote: post #5

IMHO, the real issue with Google isn't the control of the web browser, but the complete vertical integration of the ad space. Divest Google of its position as the ad broker (i.e., unwind its acquisition of DoubleClick), and prohibit any sort of privileged data flow from Google to ex-Google Ads, and you'd probably have a more viable solution than the poking DoJ is trying to do right now.

Why? Google develops ad-supported software, they run their own ad placement service for it, and they allow others to use that service to run ads on their own sites. I think there's a bit of a conflict of interest between running the website ranking service and running an ad service that ranked websites can choose to use, but that's minor compared to also controlling the browsing platform.

If Google started ranking sites that use AdSense higher than other sites, you could probably prove that in court fairly easily — your lawyers would make them hand over their ranking code during discovery, and it would say `if (usesAdSense) score++`, and you'd win.

But if they made (are making) subtle web platform changes via their control of the browsing platform that hurt competitors and help Google, that's extremely difficult to prove. Look at third-party cookies, for example.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#82

Post by sunshowers »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #53
lillecarl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but it's also not great when Amazon can undercut their way into every market because AWS is a crazy cash cow, which hurt other US companies. Do you really need Amazon to be a "second government" who can decide what "you" buy, see and to some degree think. It "works" in China where the government just stomps their feet if companies misbehave too much and everyone complies instantly or get replaced. Edit: s/Amazon…

Some companies / services are just not viable as a standalone company, but still provide immense value to customers. What will end up happening is not that Amazon will have to compete with others on video game streaming for example, what will happen is that video game streaming will disappear because not viable. Browsers won't suddenly flourish when Google cannot finance browsers anymore, they'll just turn to shit. P…

Why would browsers turn to "shit"? The web platform is quite capable these days.

I think Chrome on Android is already pretty "shit" these days, because it doesn't support ad blocking at all.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#83

Post by alt227 »

ajross wrote: post #48
shadowtree wrote: post #42

Man, I hope they break out Google Business apps. The artificial price point for GMail, GDocs, GMeet has killed so much competition. Try pricing something against this insane dumping price Google sets - there is no TAM, the M does not payback enough to justify the effort. The cross-financing with Ads would finally stop and fair pricing would come.

> The artificial price point for GMail, GDocs, GMeet has killed so much competition. It literally led to the creation of Office 365 and broke open a market that had been closed to competition in the face of an unbreakable Microsoft Monopoly for decades ! That sounds ridiculous on its face. Of all the product areas to complain about Google having a monopoly, you picked the office suite!? HN tends strongly to one side…

Microsoft have always made a point that they can never compete with Google on price of office apps, therefore they try to compete on service, support, and included bells and whistles. This is why when you buy an O365 license you basically get anything Microsoft has ever developed thrown in with it.

Office is Microsofts bread and butter, for Google its a side project that disrupts Microsofts business model.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#84

Post by butz »

How about we raise some money and buy Chrome for the users? First order of business will be removing all privacy invading "features" and re-enabling Manifest V2. If somehow we'll have some cash left, we might even contract Igalia to build blocker right into browser.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#85

Post by etc-hosts »

9283409232 wrote: post #25
staplung wrote: post #8

Honest question: who are the potential realistic buyers of Chrome? OS vendors already have their own browsers and Chrome doesn't directly make much (any?) money.

I don't mean this because he is topical but Musk makes the most sense. In the same way Brave has Brave Wallet, if Musk really wants to force his X Pay and Wallet on the world, integrating with the most popular browser is a solid move.

Hellworld.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#86

Post by andrewla »

pcl wrote: post #43
SirMaster wrote: post #38

But would these services even be financially viable as separate entities? How does Chrome make income? Isn't it basically developed at a loss, but it makes money for Google's other business units?

That’s sort of the point, right? The monopoly laws are designed to go after companies that are using their monopoly position in one market to subsidize other product lines to keep out competition.

I agree that's what the laws are supposed to go after, but forced sale or divestment seems like the wrong remedy here.

Force Google to charge money for the service, or to pay a portion of imputed stolen revenue to competitors. But Chrome itself is not a viable business without the huge fountain of money that is search ads.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#87

Post by jay_kyburz »

pcl wrote: post #43
SirMaster wrote: post #38

But would these services even be financially viable as separate entities? How does Chrome make income? Isn't it basically developed at a loss, but it makes money for Google's other business units?

That’s sort of the point, right? The monopoly laws are designed to go after companies that are using their monopoly position in one market to subsidize other product lines to keep out competition.

Whats weird is that nobody has tried to sell browsers for a very long time. It's not like they gave away Chrome to drive some other browser out of the market.

They developed Chrome because their business was web based and they wanted a solid platform for their apps.

And we all benefited from that stable platform. And it's mostly open source in Chromium. And they are paying Mozilla to stay in the game - an arms length, independent implementation of standards.

I think its wrong to suggest what they should have done is build an entire walled garden like Apple has done.

Update: I think the important part of your statement was "too keep out competition." I don't see how developing and giving away Chrome is stifling the browser market.

I can see how paying other people to make Google search default might stifling the search market, but that has nothing to do with Chrome.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#88

Post by alt227 »

jmyeet wrote: post #33

I have no idea how a for-profit company can exist that solely produces a browser. There's only one model that can work long-term here: collective ownership. The closest model is probably the Wikimedia Foundation. Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation are here, obviously, but they've tried to act like a corporation with rising costs and lower earnings going over years. The money Google pays them is basically poison. Linu…

A Browser with 65% share of the worlds web access can be leveraged to do a lot of things.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#89

Post by mushufasa »

My guess is this may go to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Linux Foundation, or other industry consortium, since Chromium is already an industry standard and that structure would enable Google et al to continue to directly employ the developer teams currently working on it.

Re: DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

#90

Post by jaybro867 »

mushufasa wrote: post #89

My guess is this may go to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Linux Foundation, or other industry consortium, since Chromium is already an industry standard and that structure would enable Google et al to continue to directly employ the developer teams currently working on it.

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