Summary
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) plans to ask a judge to force Google to sell its Chrome browser, aiming to break up its dominance in the search market and address antitrust violations.
The DoJ also seeks structural remedies for Google’s role in artificial intelligence and the Android ecosystem, along with data licensing requirements.
Google, controlling 90% of the global search market, has called the actions an overreach that would harm consumers.
This follows an earlier court ruling finding Google guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly. Proposed remedies are due by December 20.
- Divest android to a new corporation in a tax haven
- “license” android to google for more money than they make from selling phones
- write loss off in tax
the starbucks model
So I don’t get how this addresses the anti trust issues… So Google doesn’t own the browser, won’t they still make deals to be the default search engine across all devices? Don’t they still manipulate search results to benefit themselves and their ad revenue above the quality of their search results?
I don’t know if this is part of the case, but browsers basically control standards, and with the size of chrome, that means google controls the standards. The browser is a big aspect of the ad pipeline. Because they have the browser they could direct page views to themselves more than they do by using amp links. Even with blocking cookies and such, chrome still sends data back to google. There was the whole logon scheme they were pushing (I don’t remember the name) that only chrome would be able to do. There is a lot you can direct to yourself if you control the main access method.
I don’t care if they own Chrome. Force them to sell their advertising business.
My gut says this is a play for elon to buy it to clamp down on communication
Yes, I’m sure that someone else will want to buy Google’s loss leader, Chrome, so they too can spend a bunch of money to get sued.
It would make more sense and be more effective to require them to spin off DoubleClick/display ads.
I’ve been boycotting Chrome for years; I don’t understand how it’s still a thing.
It’s the most popular browser by usage rate around the world.
So tech companies build for it.
And people use it because that’s what works.
Because it’s the most popular browser by usage rate in the world.
So tech companies build for it…
But… I don’t use it!
Honestly I think most people use it because that’s what’s already on their device. There is a shocking number of people that don’t realize they can even replace apps with other apps.
Many mobile apps are just stripped-down web browsers hard coded to only access one website. Most of those type of app are built on Chromium.
It’s embedded in every smart TV and most other IoT devices that require some kind of web interface.
Personally? Gotta use it at work. I don’t at home.
Oh yeah, me too. I forgot about that.
This is a good first step. Force the browser into an open source project and allow everyone to submit code to it.
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that what Chromium is?
Yes that is correct.
So they will still maintain Chromium but not have a flavour right?
They need to turn plans into actions before Jan 20th.
It will be a toothless effort. Splitting up Google or any tech giant at anything near the scale of the Ma Bell breakup is a pipe dream in modern, corporate-owned America. It does not matter how big these companies get. They’ve already won, so the only way to get any headway is changing the game.
