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.
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
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.
I don’t disagree, it’s more of a matter of least evil.
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.
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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 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).
I never had problems with banking apps on GrapheneOS, 3 different apps, all work totally fine.
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.
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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.
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).
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.
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
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.
Google’s ad network and YouTube are pushing the agenda more than pretty much everyone.
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.
“Guns don’t kill people, people do!” No structural issues here to see, please proceed /s
More like, if you sell a gun and follow the law, you’re not responsible if the person you sold the gun to murders someone…
They’re an ad agency. They sell ad space. If “anti-abortion” people buy ads, that doesn’t mean that Google is pushing anti-abortion. How anyone could think like that is frankly the epitome of stupidity.
Wow that’s naive.
Just make them put support for manifest v2 back.
A direct “donation” to Trump would instantly fix this.
Why, what, is there something different about the Google guy?
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.
