The U.S. Department of Justice is ramping up its case against Google’s alleged monopoly, suggesting the government could eventually force the company to sell its widely-used Chrome browser. The move is part of the DoJ’s push to challenge Google’s hold over the digital advertising and search engine markets.
The Justice Department’s latest legal action accuses Google of engaging in anticompetitive behavior by unfairly using its dominance in search and advertising to prop up its other services, most notably Chrome. The government argues that Google’s browser and vast data ecosystem have given the company an outsized advantage over competitors, stifling innovation and harming consumers. By bundling Chrome with its Android operating system, Google has built an extensive network that could limit consumer choice and make it difficult for smaller firms to compete.
the browser itself doesn’t matter. Google have had 10 years to do what they want with the specs for html, CSS and JavaScript, to define everything from browser extension APIs to the http protocol itself. they have won. not only have they spent a decade architecting the web in a way that mostly benefits them, they have made those specifications so bloated and complicated that nobody can develop a competitor from scratch. it took years to undo the damage wrought by ie6’s stagnation but this is different. this shit can’t be undone. it’s fucked forever
It would be better to not allow Google to have a major stake in the control of the Chromium project itself. Same for Android, force them to spin AOSP off into a nonprofit or sell it to EFF or something and forbid them from having a huge stake in it.
Let them use it for their own products, but remove their financial influence over the underlying software.
Spinning off AOSP into something like Mozilla would massively boost its appeal. I myself left android cuz of privacy issues (no I can’t use GrapheneOS, I need access to my banking apps).
Use shit banking apps on GOS from 6 of them from 3 countries , no issus what so ever. Apple has privacy issues as well. You can also use other roms with microG and aurorastore
Which tech company would buy Chrome from Google? I just can’t think of a single tech company that could be an improvement over Google owning Chrome.
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Amazon
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Apple
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Meta
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Microsoft
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Oracle
What about media companies? I don’t see consumers benefiting from this.
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Comcast
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Disney
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Netflix
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Viacom
What about telecom? I still don’t see consumers benefiting from this.
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AT&T
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T-Mobile
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Verizon
What about foreign companies? Will they be even allowed to buy Chrome? I’m not sure.
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LG
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Philips
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Samsung
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Sony
The more I think about it, this won’t end well.
Sell it to Canonical
Sell it to IBM so they can end all support lol
Chromium is already there and companies like Microsoft have their own forks so… Yeah I think there’s no point of buying Chrome.
It’s the most popular web browser in the world. Direct access to the browser windows and browsing data of the majority of Internet users would be the point.
Of those companies, Apple seems like the best option due to their business goals (privacy). Though I am not fully sure why they’d want to as they already have a browser with a relative market share dominance and ecosystem.
Realistically, it would make sense to see Microsoft try again, it would instantly get 70% of the world to use “Edge”, so their goals are met. Chrome already has the modern web standards, so it might just mean slower progression of the web in the future.
Apples business isn’t privacy. Apples business is selling privacy.
Apple seems like the best option due to their business goals (privacy).
Lol. Lmao, even.
Sorry for the flippant comment, but it’s so incredibly wrong that I need to highlight the ridiculousness. TBF to you, it’s a common misconception due to Apple marketing’s lies, and our regulatory agencies unable/unwilling to do anything about companies that lie like Apple does.
Microsoft would be even worse.
The best outcome IMO is to kill Chrome, Edge, AND Safari, and force users to scatter and find an alternative on their own. There will need to be some way to prevent all big tech from trying to compete here too (Facebook, Amazon, etc), as those are incentivized to monopolize exactly like Google did, and we shouldn’t have to wait another 2 decades for the government to do something about it.
There will be some growing pains as people initially end up on shitty/scammy browsers, but eventually the market will do its thing and browser devs will compete for marketshare.
Is Microsoft even eligible? Wasn’t their anti-trust suit over IE basically about this same thing?
Stellantis
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or pay a generous fee of %0.00001 of your yearly earnings to make it go away
A direct “donation” to Trump would instantly fix this.
I’d cheer if I thought this was anything except a blackmail play when a Trump administration is now involved. They’ll buy him off and it’ll all be back to status quo by fall.
Google should do the power play and completely open source the browser.
But Chrome is already just Chromium with some binary blobs. Chromium itself even has sync and Google services at this point.
Besides, what would that change in regards to who develops it?
the doj doesn’t care about monopolies; the doj just wants to punish people who don’t push fascist agendas.
Not true. This lawsuit has been in the works for a long time. IIRC the investigation started towards the end up the first Trump admin, was completed, brought to trial, and won by the Biden admin, and now is being completed under Trump again.
Don’t believe the MAGA lies about government agencies being partisan hacks. They’re generally staffed by people who believe in the mission and put that ahead of politics. Under Trump, a lot of good people are leaving, but the ones playing the loyalty game can stay and keep working.
Google’s ad network and YouTube are pushing the agenda more than pretty much everyone.
I thought so too because I only get horrific conservative nonsense from their platforms but turns out they’ve been vearing left lately, delisting conservative news and banning far right advertisers.
They’re an open platform. Anyone can buy ad time on their platforms. It has nothing to do with Google and everything to do with people buying ad time.
If you’re going to be pissed, then be pissed. Just be right.
Just thinking one step further: If I have capital, I control the ads and content.
Thank god the rich are interested in human rights.
Wow that’s naive.
“Guns don’t kill people, people do!” No structural issues here to see, please proceed /s
Microsoft Chrome
Meta Chrome
Amazon Chrome
Apple Chrome
Sell to who though
X Chrome
Ughhhhhhh
That…makes a horrible amount of sense.
I really want to downvote you just for the idea. Wow
Can I kick them? I want to kick them.
ByteDance shell company Chrome.
I guess Google didn’t bribe hard enough
There are still Trump critics on YouTube.
You know, I always assumed they were conservative biased because for me personally they always pushed the most disgusting far right garbage in reccomended and adverts for over a decade, but I looked it up and I guess Google does have an anti-conservative bias in their news listings.
TIL.
It’s not done yet. I highly doubt it ever will be either.
Justice Department is 100% lobbing this over to JD Vance’s buddy Peter Thiel who’s going to enshittify it even further and turn it with its massive install base into a tool for techno-fascism.
I must say that, as a European using a Firefox fork for my daily browsing while waiting for Ladybird, I don’t see that outcome as completely negative: Google, somehow, in America has kept a completely unjustified good vibes feeling surrounding itself, while Thiel is much more evil in the public eye.
If Chrome is associated with him in anyway it can become a more lucid image of itself.
Ladybird can’t come fast enough.
He’dl still have access to all the old data on everyone though.
I am not sure about that within US Law, but given what it usually sums up to, yes, it is a risk, which would make things even faster, possibly.
I really don’t think this is true. It might push some politically engaged users to Firefox, but unlike Musk, most people don’t know who Thiel is, and as long as he keeps it that way, nobody will care.
That’s when we come onto the scene.
I am continuously “translating” news and opinions from here on LinkedIn. Already got banned from a professional Slack that contains most people in my industry for saying in a private conversation that I like watermelon.
Not gonna stop. People are not politically inclined because we kept our knowledge to ourselves for too long.
For a second, I read your fruit predilection literally and was like, “Is…watermelon controversial, now? Are they [the people who banned you] cartoonishly racist?”
I follow you, now; sucks but expected…
I still don’t get it, can you clue me in?
Yeah; of course. Ze’s referencing supporting Palestine (as the watermelon became more widely recognized as a symbol for them due to recent events).
FF depends on google ad money, thats why FF is currently enshittifying right now.
Acceleration-ism does not work.
If the USA has not taught you this, after this reckless takeover, nothing will save you.
The more likely outcome is for Chrome to become a North Korea RedStar equivalent, where you cannot freely access the internet without Chrome. And if you visit a resource with wrongspeak, the resource will have all its finances taken away (see the legislation surrounding section 230); with you being sent to El Salvador.
Same workflow/expectation state. ⏳
Please, do it! That’s going to eviscerate Chrome’s userbase and push these Chromium browsers to fork so fast it’ll make his head spin.
You’re putting way too much faith in the typical consumer. Enshittifying Chrome even more would piss its users off, but inertia and its market dominance would keep most of them continuing to use it while complaining about how bad it is.
Remember: It took 8 years for Chrome to drag Internet Explorer to the point where less than 10% of people actually used it. And that’s with Firefox already being a competitor to it for years.
Google would still own android and may not be inclined to keep chrome as the default. That is a significant portion of the browser’s user base.
With default search engine agreements being threatened, it may shake out where Google and Firefox agreed to make Firefox the default android browser in exchange for keeping Google their default search engine.
Why, what, is there something different about the Google guy?
I’ll go and risk “shade of skin”. He is also smiling an looks a little less as a Bond villain, but I go with the shading.
Look at all their lips. See how they look like they are ready to kiss or suck something? Now look at Pichai. Just smiling instead of getting ready to receive a load. He bent the knee, but not far enough.
Yeah, that’s probably the difference
The rest look like they got some boots to shine real good!
I guess for Trump they look shiny themselves, while the Google guy looks somehow not white nor orange enough.
They’re all dickheads, but he actually looks like one. So do his weird “space” ships.
Bezos isn’t the ceo of Google, Sundar Pichai is
Yeah, but we’re not talking about Amazon guy, we’re talking about Google guy.
Something about him is different, but I’m not white sure what it could be.
Solution: Create an open source foundation, cram the board with Google employees
As long as they are doing the browser work independently from Google (meaning no Google integration), doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Kind of like they already present their work (Chromium and Chrome)
And then they can brand a version of chromium, call it shiny or something
Foundation boards can are susceptible to bribe money in exchange for features or default things. Look at Firefox.
I think this is good news which seems hard to believe right now. I’m sure someone will find a way to make this terrible but on it’s face we are watching an important anti-trust ruling take place. Google’s monopoly on the browser is dangerous and unhealthy. Taking it away from them is absolutely the right thing to do. Who inherits the power over the single browser used by most of the world remains to be seen though.
Who inherits the power over the single browser used by most of the world remains to be seen though.
Probably Musk or Thiel.
The year is 2032
The Hogan Browser new update reads you an AI Sermon when you attempt to access medical graphs because it autodetected pornographic content.
You have 20 minutes to repent before the ICE justiciars show up and sentence you, but you forgot to clean and polish the Trump Crucifix Statuette this morning.
X browser
Thus the price of collaboration. You are not rewarded, you simply draw attention to yourself as someone with wealth they can pillage.
