DOJ to ask judge to force Google to sell off Chrome, Bloomberg reports
DOJ to ask judge to force Google to sell off Chrome, Bloomberg reports
Note: Original report by Bloomberg, article by Reuters proxied by Neuters to bypass paywall.
Google will bribe trump and this'll be undone immediately
Google is such a good company, one the best. Everybody says it. I was just talking to John Google the other day, and he tells me, no really he did, he tells me we're going to do amazing things together. Oogles of googles. That's what we'll sell. Everybody will know about google by this time next year. It's true.
That would be the logical thing according to common sense and probably according to pichai a few weeks ago, but trump just nominated an anti big tech and musk friend to the FCC. musk is behind almost everybody in ai and autonomous cars so he'll definitely push to hamper all competitors.
Sure, we don't know how far would they go or how long will musk keep having white house influence and I personally think breaking up google is now off the table, but I don't think they will get off the hook too easily.
So surely a very big bribe.
This seems like a sensible consumer protection to not let the ad company control the biggest web browser. I won't hold my breath, but I'm glad they are trying something.
AWS should also be split from Amazon.
AWS is amazing's money maker, they might as well just sell Amazon and keep AWS lol
I think this is something even Elon Musk could get behind.
Why force one company to sell off their browser? Shouldn't MS have to sell Edge and Apple sell Safari?
Microsoft having IE/Edge as the default browser has already cost them in the past. I don't think Apple faced anything with Safari.
The problem today with chrome is how prevalent it is and how that influences the main product of the internet (advertising), which happens to be Google's mais product too. Apple can at least make the argument that they make their money with the hardware, not the browser.
Either way, I think all OS should at least give you a list of browsers on first use to choose from.
Their overwhelming market share is probably the main problem.
Rad. Do Microsoft next.
Again! Again!
They can just wait it out until it becomes the corpo-friendly Dept. of Injustice on Jan. 20th.
If this happens, I'd be interested in seeing how this effects ChromeOS. I don't use it but my mom does.
Also, if you're confused as to why ChromeOS would be effected, while it's based on Gentoo Linux, ChromeOS uses a modified version of Chrome as it's Desktop Environment.
Yes I would like to know what that means for ChromeOS and Chromebooks. If the new "Chrome" company got ChromeOS also that would be huge. But if that is not a requirement Google could just put another Chromium browser in ChromeOS. They could also continue to sell Chromebooks but based on a ChromiumOS fork.
Better hurry, Trump's rubber stamp DOJ will kill this faster than a cop encountering a dog.
For the right price.
Iâve actually when something like this will happen. A few years ago German energy providers and distributors needed to split, because it gives you an unfair advantage if you own both. Whole companies were split in two. People working for years together would no longer work together. In the end consumer were much better off after the split. I feel the same way with internet browser. It is unfair if you own the infrastructure (Chrome, energy grid) and the services that run on it (YouTube, power plants).
And whoever buys it won't also have some kind of ulterior motive? Chrome isn't likely to be a money-maker on its own. If it were, Firefox would have less trouble staying afloat. Anyone who buys Chrome most likely will have plans for it that are no more in the end-user's best interest than Google's.
It's not about dispelling any ulterior motive. The idea of anti-monopoly enforcement actions is that if the "business ecosystem" is good and healthy, then other companies who don't own Chrome will be able to compete with whoever owns Chrome, giving the consumer choice that people who like the free market say will reduce consumer exploitation. (If you can't tell from my tone, I am dubious, at best, of this logic)
Yeah any company controlled by the rich will act immorally
We can at least make sure it's multiple companies who will fight each other instead of one supreme leader megacorp
LoL they won't, even if they buy it for 1 trillion dollar
What's to stop them just making another browser?
With blackjack and hookers?
I'm 40% internet browser.
Potentially.
Whatâs to stop them just making another browser?
Nothing. Chromium is open source. So they could just fork it and declare a new "official" google browser and it would be a lot like Chrome.
I'm not sure why the govt thinks forcing google to give up a particular fork/branch of an open source browser is all that meaningful. It might make more sense if Chrome was a closed source one of a kind browser.
Iâve worked in the aftermath of DoJ agreements like this one. The DoJ is not stupid (or at least didnât used to be) and will have stipulations about removing Google employees from governance/write permissions to the project, with follow up check-ins every few months to make sure any shenanigans arenât occurring.
..none of that matters though now that the DoJ is going to be dissolved.
That's exactly what I was thinking. It also makes Chrome essentially worthless to anyone except Google.
Not needed. Internet Explorer existed for years after the 90s. It wasn't killed by the courts. It was killed by the fact that it's only function was to install a better browser on first boot.
They didn't make the first one! They got it from Apple, who themselves got it from KDE.
It will never happen. But it would be a good thing for the openness of the web. More Firefox, less Chrome.
Yep.
Tech companies have extreme "Fuck You" money. They have learned a lot from the past two decades of Antitrust acts.
That politician is either going to quickly change their mind with some bribes, or watch their entire life disappear with an army of lawyers or paid off peers shutting them down.
Wouldn't it put Firefox on a pickle? Say Chrome gets bought out of Google's hands, would they still bother to pay half a billion to Firefox to stay as the default search engine? Could Firefox survive being financially independent?
I'd assume they would be willing to pay even more.
What if Linux foundation buys Chrome?
Do they have the money? What is the value of Chrome anyways, if you can't do monopoly things with it? About as much as Firefox?
How do you force someone to sell something thats open source?
Can the government please force me to sell my open source software too? If they could be my sales department, I'd love that. Pretty please.
Chromium is open source, Google bases their Chrome off of it, but Chrome is not open source.
OK but 98% of chrome is open source then? Who would buy it?
I don't see how a "Chrome" company would make any money. Now if the Chrome Company also owned ChromeOS and Chromebooks that might be interesting. But it could also be bad, because such a company would probably want to take a cut of every Chromebook in order to actually make money.
HA!
What a joke.
Stock didn't drop
They are going to ask a judge like they have no fucking balls.
It's called "Distribution of Power".
We should be thankful it's still here.
Distribution of power into corporate hands. Oh, im willing to bet it is here to stay.
They shutting force then to stop the advertising branch too
Ugh. Just link to Reuters.
It has a soft paywall.
I think the common practice is to link to the original in the URL bar and then use the body text to do paywall/loginwall removals.
Then leave that to every one else to deal with; don't make other people wear your tin-foil hat. Or just start your own community and call it "Dot's Offbrand Extravaganza" or something.
Sprint merged with TMobile
This is probably the real reason corporate America had no interest in endorsing Harris.
Yes, regulate the web browsers where you can just download librewolf or brave, but donât do anything about the criminal ISPs and wireless network service providers.
I know, right? Why deal with Problem X when Problem Y also exists?
I heard the same for Android and I was pretty supportive of the sentiment until I listened to the Android Faithful podcast episode discussing it...
If Google doesn't develop Android, nobody will. Whoever buys Android, we don't know if they will maintain the AOSP. Android has been an equal parts rollercoaster of good and bad ideas thanks to Google, but it has had someone do that...
Maybe LineageOS could take over, but that's just insane wishful thinking.
Nokia, Siemens, Oracle, Linux Foundation, Tesla, IBM, OpenAI...there a hundreds of companies wealthy enough in that space that would not pose a consumer protection issue.
Fair point. I don't think I thought of this lol.
[Google controls how people view the internet]
This doesn't quite make sense. How does Chrome "control how people view the internet"? Isn't html/css the main thing that controls how people view the internet?
[ and what ads they see in part through its Chrome browser, which typically uses Google search,]
But it is trivial to change your default search agent right?
Is this move something we should view as a good thing, and if so, then why?
Essentially, everything is Chrome, Firefox or Safari.
Brave, Edge etc are chrome.
Most people are using chrome.
Google controlling chrome controls what the vast majority of people use to see the internet, and then they change chrome to make it harder for you to block ads that they want to show.
There's no reason for chrome to break ad blockers unless it's owned by an ad company.
Edit: Google done some other shady things by owning it in the past as well.
Steam, Spotify, Discord. Whoops, all Chromium.
Chrome has a massive market share and Google abuses that market share by breaking web standards, and pushing people towards Chrome because "the competition doesn't work".
They act in bad faith and abuse their position to more deeply entrench their position in anticompetitive monopolistic ways.
That's the Crux of it.
Google abuses that market share by breaking web standards,
Has this actually happened? Are there examples?
Breaking up monopolies is a good thing, and Google arguably holds too much power. Chromium is being used in 70% of browsers, and the decision how to implement and develop web standards are all in the hand of one for profit company, which had little interest in keeping things open and accessible (and private).
A quote from this Register article sums it up nicely:
What we are forced to assume in turn is that Chrome is built by the professional developers working for an ad agency with the primary goal of building a web browser that serves the needs of other professional developers working for the ad agency's prospective clients.
Chromium is being used in 70% of browsers
To me, I don't think that should be an issue in anything. That's up to browser makers. They are able to use whatever they want, and they will use whatever is easiest/best for their usage. They are also free to use WebKit (Safari's engine), Gecko (Mozilla), or roll their own. This just sounds like you want to punish someone because they made something everyone preferred just because everyone preferred it.
It's different when you are "forced" to use it (use ours or we won't let you on our devices, like iOS, or use ours and we will lower/cut our fees for other things you want/need, like many different companies). But when the public is truly free to use what they want and they all want the same thing, then it shouldn't be used as a reason to punish them.
What? The fact it's owned & developed by Google is the whole point
This is how the DOJ is planning to approach dismantling Google's illegal monopoly, by breaking chrome - the world's most used browser - away from them
Lit. It's a good ask although it's not clear what separation means here. Not going to hold my breath, the big corpos seem to usually win these kind of games.
Chrome is now owned by a company, owned by a company, owned by another company, that is owned by Google.
And even in the case where there is actual separation, and competition, it will only be temporary!
It's like they're a company pretending to be another company, disguised as another company. Tropic Thunder all the way down.