DOJ says Google must sell Chrome to crack open its search monopoly
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/20/24300617/doj-google-search-antitrust-chrome-breakupOpen linkView original on feddit.org763
Comments157https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/20/24300617/doj-google-search-antitrust-chrome-breakupOpen linkView original on feddit.org
I'm honestly curious how this would "harm Americans".
Google pretending they have any other nationality other then “the global internet” is cute in a disgusting way.
That statement is technically true.
The billionaire owners are Americans.
The corporations are people too!
I refuse to call any Billionaires Americans. A billionaire in America has far more in common with a billionaire in Ireland or France than with working class Americans. They don't use our schools, drink our water, drive our roads, or rely on our safety nets. They don't take out the trash, do their laundry, wait 6 months for a doctor's appointment, or stress over defunding their retirement to pay for needed medication.
Billionaire involvement in politics should be considered foreign interference. Of course AIPAC is foreign interference too, but apparently that's not a problem either.
I fear this is exactly who they're courting.
It harms wealthy asshole Americans at Google.
The same ruling would ban Google from paying other browsers to make Google the default search engine.
This would kill Firefox and make Chromium the only browser engine that's left.
It would leave the newly-split-off chrome in the same financial situation as firefox. Arguably a worse one.
That language seems very "Trump-esque", and I doubt it is a coincidence.
How does chrome make money? It uses ads from Google, chrome on it's own is not a business.
Say you buy chrome, you have to options
Ads built into chrome itself (when you're in the settings menu, homepage, reading a PDF, playing the dino game)
Force your own default search engine, or get a company like Google or Bing to pay you for the privilege of being a default search engine.
Neither of these options are better than the status quo
This is the last antitrust win we'll get for years, isn't it?
I know Trump doesn't like Big Tech, but I doubt his admin will punish them meaningfully, but just rail about censorship.
This isn't a win I think. They are yet to meet in the court with Google.
I keep saying this. In 2 months all this antitrust stuff goes out the window. If people actually bothered to show up on 11/5 Kahn and co could actually get some wins for the American people. Instead, we're going to get more monopolies shoved down our throats.
Our govt is pay for play at this point, I struggle to see anything like this going through, especially so close to a new AG appointment.
Ehh just fight it for a month pay king trump some money and bam their golden.
This is exactly what will happen. Same thing with Albertsons and Kroger too.
Okay but consider them taking this moment to let Elon buy it and using it to control information on the clients end 💀
Maybe we'll actually see people switch to Firefox if that happens.
We all know this wouldn't happen.
Yup, I guess I just revel in disappointment.
That would end the internet/world.
Google ditched their "don't be evil" motto, so yeah, this is on the table.
The fact that this is TOTALLY WITHIN REALM OF REALITY is PROOF that Trump is Draining The Swamp!
If they're allowed to choose who they sell it to this won't change anything
I think they should sell it to me.
4 $ Final Offer
Too much for me, I'm out 🏳️
Sell it to Mozilla so they can make it uninstall itself and install Firefox instead in the next update
imagine they sell it so some random homeless guy in Australia for 1 cent
Just...please for the love of whatever diety do Microsoft. Fucking sick of their shit recently with One Drive.
Do you have a few minutes to learn about our lord and savior Linux?
Man the Linux propaganda is STRONG on Lemmy. I'll say what I've said before: I use my computer for gaming, web browsing, and managing a media server for my family that hosts pictures and other things. If those 3 things can be done easily without issue on a Linux distro without having to fuck around with configs every time I want to do something, I'm all in. By what I've heard though it's just not there yet. I am super happy Steam decided to go Linux for their Steamdeck though as I've heard thats helped make monumental strides the right direction. Trust me, I want to. Large part of it is I worked tech support for over a decade and having to troubleshoot my own shit is like the furthest thing I want to deal with haha
Just going to say, I do those things too, on Linux, and while I can't say I never have to mess with config files, it's not frequent. And, the computer acting like it's my computer rather than on loan from a megacorp is nice.
It's not all the way there yet but it's so very close and the bits that are still pain points aren't nearly as bad as the pain points of Windows.
As the other commenter said, you should give it a serious try. Mint is very smooth overall.
Appreciate it! Thank you!
You owe it to yourself to try it out! I recommend dual booting into Linux Mint Cinnamon for a while and have your windows install to fall back on to. That or one of the gaming-specific distributions, but from what I’ve seen Mint does all with gaming too. It’s a good all-around starting place, and there are a lot of resources because it’s popular and built off of the most popular distro. I installed it on my work machine (software engineering) and I’ve felt no lack of capability or a need to switch to a more “hardcore” distro.
Thanks! Appreciate the type up and suggestion. I'll add it to my list of ones to try out.
Hey I will give my anecdotal recent experience. Several months ago I switched to Pop! OS and have had basically no issues. I have an Nvidia GPU and I play a lot of games. I don't play any games that are blocked by anti cheat (not because I can't, I just don't happen to play the few that are blocked).
I spent the first day getting everything signed in, installed, set up and tweaked to how I like it with very minimal terminal usage. Mostly gui and clicking.
Steam+Proton along with lutris makes it easy to play any game for me.
Side note: I have 4 monitors of varying resolution, size, orientation and refresh rate and it hasn't caused problems other than the initial setup (I used cursr to help with this)
Oh God I didn't even think about monitors. I only have one but it's the stupid big ultra wide by Samsung. I honestly play most games in windowed. Wondering if there's resolution support on the actual os though. The rest is like...5120 x something.
One monitor will be fine no matter the resolution.
I'm running Ubuntu and never had an issue with 5120x1440 on a stupid big ultrawide AOC.
Okay great! Good to know, thanks!
If you can live without games having invasive anticheat, then everything should be doable, and probably a lot easier than in Windows.
Yeah not really into multiplayer competitive games. Indo play a lot of co op though. Will have to find a list somewhere.
Proton DB is the place to go. But I don't check 99% of games I play, unless it's going to be an expensive purchase and I want to check before I buy. I also don't bother with people's suggested tweaks on proton db unless I actually personally experience issues. The only game I've had to tweak so far has been cyberpunk 2077.
Edit: added context, I'm on 2 monitors and one of them is an ultrawide. Never had any issues that aren't similar to issues I've experienced on Windows in the past.
Okay awesome thank you!
Microsoft is waaay easier to avoid than fucking google. Is one drive that annoying?
I feel like Trump's probably going to axe whoever is finally tackling these monopolies, unfortunately.
What changed with OneDrive? I'm genuinely interested because I'm a user and haven't noticed anything.
On corp side and personal if you don't have One Drive setup MS will spam notifications to set it up, and when you go to save will try to default to One Drive as opposed to local.
What company could actually afford to buy it other than Google, Meta, or Amazon? Unless they are forced to sell it at a loss, which is fine with me.
How exactly is this company going to make any money?
The judge would immediately shut that down for creative avoidance. This is an order to sell, not break up. The DOJ specifically indicated behavioural remedies in this case, meaning Google must not remain in control of Chrome.
Don’t ya love it when people comment saying something that they think must be true as if it were actually true, without having the slightest idea?
Oracle, sun, tencent, tita...
oracle would create MANGO (Microsoft,Apple,nvidia,google and Oracle)
Broadcom
Hear me out... Valve
Chromium engine for half life 3
Microsoft is probably drooling at the prospect. They’ve been trying to get that IE monopoly back since this happened to them.
Elon Musk
Don't fucking let Musk buy it though
Oh no.
They should force it to become a worker cooperative. It's the only solution that doesn't allow for corruption
brOURser comrade.
Nationalize?
For a lot of things yes.
However I do not want to use a browser developed by the US gov tyvm
how about the tuvalu government?
My comment is more in line with the corruption aspect. As much as I think they deserve it, giving it to the employees would be more akin to them winning the lottery. In the space of a year, they will have gone public, shareholders would have stormed in and we would be at square one.
Nationalisation at least has a chance of getting rid of the money corruption aspect. Sadly, the three letter agencies are probably deep in every browser already so I don't think any solution takes care of that.
I understand your point though. Personally, I will never use chrome no matter what happens, ha.
Yep, nationalize everything that's essential or at least offer a nationalized alternative and let the private sector try to compete.
I literally salivate at the thought of it happening to the telecom industries.
People wondering what Chrome has to do with a search monopoly:
The obvious benefit is that they can default the user's search provider to Google.
But the more nefarious benefit is that, by controlling both the client and server, they can unilaterally decide the future of web standards. They don't have to advocate for proposals, gain consensus, and limit themselves to well-supported standards the way other companies do. They can just do it, gain the first-mover advantage, and force others to follow suit.
If they don't like HTTP/2, they can invent their own protocol and implement it for their search servers and Chrome. Suddenly, using Chrome with Google Search is way faster than using Chrome with Bing or using Firefox with Google Search. Even if Microsoft and Mozilla don't like the protocol, they now have to adopt it or fall behind.
This has happened. QUIC was deployed in 2012. Firefox gained support in 2021.
They're doing the same thing with Privacy Sandbox, and you can also look at browser feature compatibility tables to see how eager Google is to force their own interpretation of every not-yet-finalized web standard as the canonical interpretation.
Edit: Also, JPEG XL vs. WebP.
sell it to Microsoft so they can finally have a web browser that people use
Yes, the anti-trust lawsuit should culminate in one part of a tech giant being sold to another tech giant.
what else would happen
Never again
Imagine where the software industry would be without all the lost productivity because of MSIE quirks.
Microsoft run Chrome clone? But they already have Edge
Which no one willingly uses
it was good at launch, but they've added so much bloat
Unless you're at a company using Microsoft services, where you have no choice, other than chrome (at my company), which hot take, is worse than edge.
I use it and love it tbh
How fucking dare you have an opinion!
I just used my brain this time. Not again!
You need to get out more
Like what?
There's literally so much else they should do, google docs, sheets, drive, phones, maps, earth, calendar, play store, translate, etc.
Good work, continue please.
What is the issue with docs, sheets, drive, phones, calendar, play store?
There seems to be plenty of options in all of these spaces. Play store isn't even on a lot of android devices.
Correct. My example for another necessary intervention would be YouTube. That's a space in which Google does have a monopoly.
Most definitely. They need viable competition.
Exactly. There are workable alternatives to most of the others, but YouTube has a stranglehold on that type of content due to the network effect. Examples of alternatives:
But there's really not much for YouTube. I guess there's Odyssee, Rumble, and a few others, but they don't have anywhere near the content as YouTube, so they're not really practical alternatives. I actually sub to Nebula which is the closest to a replacement so far, but there's still a ton of content that doesn't have a direct replacement there.
Off topic, but how do you like graphene? I am thinking of making the switch on a pixel 7a, but I have a fear it'll be like having Linux on my phone where things randomly don't work and then I have the hobby where I make it work
I really like it, but I also mostly use F-Droid apps. You can install Google Play in the regular app sandbox, which prevents the worst of the issues andn provides most of the benefits.
That said, there are still some caveats:
But other than that, it works pretty well! I have three profiles set up:
I'm using a Google Pixel 8, and it does what I need it to do.
Sounds like they are preparing for this by killing off ChromeOS
https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-os-becoming-android-3500661/
Another thing to add to the google graveyard.
Android is also on the chopping block
It says they are doing it to compete with iPad. Weird. Aren't tablets sales across all brands constantly declining?
Hot take: they sell Chrome but keep Chromium.
Seeing how tech illiterate some of these people are, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what ends up happening
How would that work exactly? Google would sell Chrome but keep paying teams if developers to work on Chromium?
Basically. I mean look at Edge, it’s running Chromium under the hood, but the UI is developed by Microsoft.
Why is everyone acting like this is a thing that will happen? All they have to do is wait roughly 90 days and it'll all go away.
Sell it to me, I'll buy it for one dollar.
I'll go treefitty
ABOUT FUCKING TIME!
Who would buy this and how would they monetize it? In browser ads? A freemium paid model to remove the ads?
I'll bid $3.50 just to GPL it.
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-projects/
It's already under BSD license
Sure, but GPL would prevent the Chrome tracking addons and other pleasant closed-source paraphernalia (the difference between Chrome and Chromium)
Isn't the BSD licence more open though?
BSD is more open towards being closed.
Is the DOJ the only working system in the US now?
Obviously not. Trump is still free.
FTC works. For now.
yeah the fcc is fucked
Big doubt anything actually happens.
The Reuters article suggests prohibiting payments to Apple so that Chrome users on their hardware default to Google search. What about default settings to Firefox? Similar agreements finance a large portion of Mozilla's revenue.
They should force google to kick sundar, the harmful thing, what made all google software, and services shit since it is the ceo...
If you think Sundar is bad, just wait to see who Wall Street picks to replace him.
I'm ok with google going the way of bed bath and beyond or red lobster.
I don't wanna live in a world without scented bath oils, cheese biscuits, and gmail!
Nor I, but wall street sadly is full of people who are literal sociopaths and would happily watch you get chopped into pieces while you're still breathing, sipping a cocktail the whole time. Or at least that's what they do to companies.
Strip google for parts And I mean that literally, asset strip the removed, no more youtube, gmail, sell the hardware, release all IP to public, absolutely dismantle google entirely. Do the same with all of FAANG. Then the 25 next biggest platform monopolists. They are Web2 parasites and they need to die.
>sell Chrome to open search monopoly
>Chrome isn't a search engine but a web browser
It has massive market share and uses Google search by default. If another company owns the browser, they'll likely change the default search engine, and since almost nobody changes the defaults, it'll eat away at Google's marketshare.
For example, Microsoft would be pretty interested in buying it to promote Bing search. Edge is already based on Chromium, so they could reuse their existing teams to offer support for it.
Like someone commented in another fediverse community: this court case can really only keep going for two more months, after that it's anyone's guess what will happen to the court: Alphabet could bribe someone in the DOJ to make the case disappear or (and this is the funny one) law and order could breakdown completely, rendering the case, the court and all the rest of society moot.
Trump will let this go through and behind the scenes force a deal where X buys Chrome
Nah I rather they not get deeply vested in figuring out as revenue...
Admittedly, I don't know enough about monopolies and antitrust laws to know how much this matters. Can someone ELI5 this and give us more info?
Yeah, see all this stuff happening between now and inauguration day. See, we did something. Too little, too late. If there are ever free and fair elections in this country, and the Democrats return to power, they better get their fucking shit together. The dismantling of the Federal government will be almost impossible to reverse.
What is that sketchy ass site lol. Did you just link malware? Also it reads like an alien wrote that, none of that made sense. What a weird site.
What the what?
"sell your browser, that'll limit your search monopoly"
. . . HAH?
It has 67% market share, and the default search is Google.
So it is on firefox as well . . ? And also with Edge, for those poor bastards.
Why not just force them to pick a different default? Or something meaningful like splitting them out of Alphabet entirely? Or stop sucking? Okay, well that last one may be hard to administrate.
It is on FF and Edge because Google pays them a ton of money. Every person who chooses Chrome instead of FF is more money for Google because they don't need to pay themselves to make Google the default.
A fair point, though "a ton of money" is essentially 1% of their net profits for the year. Selling Chrome to someone who gets another .5% is not going to do anything at all.
What does Chrome have to do with search? 🤔
Google is the default search engine for chrome, and chrome is the single most popular browser at about 95% market share.
Um, that wouldn't change if Google "sells Chrome", though.
Firefox uses Google Search as a default, so does every Samsung phone (and most other Android devices).
Unless the DOJ is telling everyone not to implement a default search engine (and let the user decide upon first opening the browser), then who owns Chrome really doesn't change much.
This is the only thing that makes sense, but "sell Chrome" is a laughable request.
Alright then I'll do you one better:
Google regularly abuses their market share dominance in browsers in order to push for changes to web standards that benefit them, such as their web integrity api (which would have prevented blocking ads). This is monopolistic behavior, and the largest ad company on the planet shouldn't get to decide web standards.
As a side note: both firefox and Samsung are paid handsomely (just like apple) to have Google as a default search engine. This also is monopolistic behavior, if you built a better product than them then you couldn't outspend them to get to the same position.
Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, Google is highly unethical, and I avoid any and all Google related products whenever possible.
Selling Chrome, however, doesn't really stop them from doing damage.
The part about not allowing them
to bribepay other companies to use their search is a much better idea.And regarding their influence over the internet... we need stronger regulation to prevent any company from having that much control over an essential service.
Since you were unable to answer, I'll just tell you: Google.
What search engine does Chrome, by far and away the most used browser be it on phone or PC, use?
Hey look, some boomers who don't understand tech are trying to do a thing with a tech company. Sell Chrome? What a stupid idea.
I'm afraid that this is a terrible take. There is nothing to stop them from making it into a separate company. It would break the monopoly because the same people making the browser won't be the ones earning the ad revenue.
How does Chrome the company make money?
That isn't the point, is it? Why does the government and the people care about the profits of some company?
How do you sell something with no value. It's a stupid premise.
It is the point. There is no benefit to us, as in the world, if this were to happen.
It's pretty clear that you don't understand what antitrust is about. I might suggest you read the Wikipedia article before commenting further. Also you should maybe take a moment to consider why you are taking the side of Google, a terrible and abusive company worth hundreds of billions of dollars. They don't need your support.
Pass. I'm not taking sides, I'm looking at the blowback of such a stupid decision. Maybe you should research how important chromium is to open source and stop riding the blanket antitrust chubby.
LOL chromium is not important, it isn't. I know you want it to be, but it's not. There are plenty of alternatives out there, Firefox being the most obvious one. Really, stop simping for Daddy Google. You sound like an edgy teen.
We should nationalize it
Maybe, yes.