# Google must sell Chrome to end search monopoly, says US justice department **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/google-must-sell-chrome-to-end-search-monopoly-says-us-justice-department/22647 **Category:** General **Tags:** article, browsers **Created:** 2024-11-22T14:31:21Z **Posts:** 49 ## Post 1 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-22T14:31:21Z > **[Google must sell Chrome to end search monopoly, says US justice department](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/21/google-sell-chrome-us-court-filing-demand-competition-laws)** > > Court filing comes after landmark ruling in August and judge will consider arguments from both sides next year I hope that this doesn’t apply to Chromium too. I would be pretty concerned about the future security of Chromium-based browsers if Chromium gets sold. --- ## Post 2 by @gregandcin — 2024-11-22T15:04:23Z I think the goal is that Google has no direct hands in the browser space, so they would not be the stewards of the Chromium project. They probably would still be able to have employees work on the project, but someone else would have to be the owners --- ## Post 3 by @anon29374801 — 2024-11-22T16:18:42Z Article title is a bit clickbaity as Google won’t have to do anything, most likely for years, as the parties await judgement and then go through the appeals process. --- ## Post 4 by @anon42475305 — 2024-11-22T17:47:26Z The title doesn’t say Google has to do anything, it only communicates what the US justice department has said in their court filing. It is up for the court to decide what the end-result will be. --- ## Post 5 by @anon29374801 — 2024-11-22T17:55:18Z fair enough, my assumption is that most readers would interpret the title as an order Google has to comply with not just as a request to a court but I can see your point. --- ## Post 6 by @anon73250778 — 2024-11-22T22:18:51Z Do you think lawmakers can tell the difference? :rofl: --- ## Post 8 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-23T07:36:48Z You explained my thoughts and worries better than I could, thanks. --- ## Post 9 by @anon22773769 — 2024-11-23T08:54:54Z Yeah, I’m really not sure how this will go. I think it’s best to let Google keep Chrome and other stuff that they have made and/or improve like Android, which they also made successful as it was failing as camera software. Meta should be broken up as they bought out their competition instead of making anything other than Facebook and Messenger. They bought WhatsApp, Instagram, Giphy, Oculus, etc. Google, Apple and Microsoft at least make their own hardware and software products. Google and Apple make the most secure devices in the world (Android and iOS). Meta made Facebook and Messenger which are terrible for privacy and humanity as a whole. --- ## Post 11 by @gregandcin — 2024-11-25T14:41:36Z > [@Anon47486929](#): > > Who will manage the browser engine then? In my mind, the Chrome/Chromium team would be spun off into its own company that would be sold off. That team would still be the stewards of the Browser and JS engines (Blink and V8, respsectively). > [@Anon47486929](#): > > targets other monopolies like AWS, Apple, Microsoft enterprise/Windows, Linux servers, ARM chip architecture, GSM mobile standards, etc. That is what I want, and what the current FTC would have kept doing if it would still be in power. It takes time to go after these large corpos. > [@Anon47486929](#): > > The solution to monopolies is fair market opportunities, not forced handovers. EU has the right ideas here. While the GDPR and DMA are steps forwards, I do not see any real damage done to large corporations without fines in the double digit percentages to their yearly revenue or breaking them up like the USA did to Standard Oil and Bell. Google and Microsoft are essentially 100+ little companies under the umbrella of one corporation, who use their vertical integration to crush the competition. --- ## Post 12 by @exaCORE — 2024-11-25T23:26:20Z Wow. I didn’t know so many people here were fans of big tech corporations’ monopolies. --- ## Post 14 by @jonah — 2024-11-27T04:55:39Z > [@Anon47486929](#): > > can you suggest a better alternative? Ideally Chromium would just have a decentralized development model like Linux currently does. The gold standard of FOSS already exists, it’s not theoretical. --- ## Post 16 by @gregandcin — 2024-11-27T13:58:29Z > [@Anon47486929](#): > > This is just kicking the can down. Its so typical in FOSS: “Someone” will fork it, “Someone” will maintain it, etc. Nobody outside of other Big Tech has the monetary and engineering resources to maintain it. I would say that if a company based on a browser, or any other individual product can not stand on its own, then the business model is bad whether it stays the same (Google using it as their gateway app) or changes (Chromium/Chrome is independent of Google/Alphabet) > [@Anon47486929](#): > > The simplistic relationships in the economic webs are too complex now for simple actions like break and sell them, or destroy their profits. They have always been complex. The companies being as big as they are is a fundamental problem. > [@Anon47486929](#): > > Tech sovereignty is the hot topic now, and no way countries force the standards they control to be divested. Linux monopoly isn’t just linux monopoly, its US hegemony, same as proprietary chips, transmission standards, and data processing tools like AI. Almost all the Big Tech companies are US based with multiple offices in every developed country in the world. We aren’t as sovereign as we think we are --- ## Post 17 by @exaCORE — 2024-11-28T02:47:31Z I do find it a bit funny that many people in this community bash Mozilla for not being perfect (such as relying on Google money) and hold Chromium up as the epitome of security but also conveniently forget that Google’s monopoly is what directly led to Mozilla not having the resources to put up as good of a fight as one might want against google --- ## Post 19 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-28T06:31:26Z So it’s Google’s fault that Mozilla couldn’t be bothered to implement Fission or isolatedProcess for their browser for over six years? Lmao. --- ## Post 20 by @dumpster — 2024-11-28T06:50:16Z In 2002 Google became the most popular search engine in the world. In 2005 the company joined the Fortune 500 and was valued at $52 billion. When they debuted Chrome in 2008, they were not entering the browser market as an “underdog”. --- ## Post 22 by @exaCORE — 2024-11-28T15:43:40Z Google used their search engine and other assets (youtube, Android, etc) to promote Chrome. That’s monopolistic practices. Consumers don’t choose products just based on how good they are --- ## Post 23 by @bluemonk — 2024-11-28T16:31:47Z > [@exaCORE](#): > > Google used their search engine and other assets (youtube, Android, etc) to promote Chrome. How is that monopolistic? They own those products right? Who wouldn’t promote another product through those products? --- ## Post 24 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-28T16:33:02Z I get promotions of Proton products in my Proton Mail, what a monopoly… --- ## Post 25 by @anon42475305 — 2024-11-28T16:33:59Z That’s the definition of a monopoly. No one else can compete with Chrome because it’s preinstalled on Android, and no one can compete with Google because it’s the default everywhere. You can’t use your dominant position in one market to compete in another. --- ## Post 26 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-28T16:35:35Z Samsung devices come with Samsung Browser, Xiaomi devices come with Mi Browser, but nobody is using those because they’re worse than Chrome. --- ## Post 27 by @anon42475305 — 2024-11-28T16:39:10Z Chrome is still preinstalled on all Samsung devices _and_ it can’t be uninstalled. I don’t know anything about Xiaomi. --- ## Post 28 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-28T16:41:38Z > [@anon42475305](#): > > Chrome is still preinstalled on all Samsung devices _and_ it can’t be installed. And people choose it over the Samsung Browser. --- ## Post 29 by @anon42475305 — 2024-11-28T16:46:52Z I mean the fact is that Samsung Browser sucks ass, so that doesn’t really say much. No one is arguing Chrome is a bad browser, just that Chrome’s dominance allows Google to dominate other markets, which is anti-competitive. The same applies to Google using Android to leverage its other apps. You won’t find an Android device that ships the Proton Suite by default. --- ## Post 30 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-28T16:55:41Z > [@anon42475305](#): > > You won’t find an Android device that ships the Proton Suite by default. Which is good. > **[Why aren't my favorite apps bundled with GrapheneOS? - GrapheneOS Frequently...](https://grapheneos.org/faq#bundled-apps)** > > This page contains answers to frequently asked questions about GrapheneOS. It's not an overview of the project or a list of interesting topics about GrapheneOS. Many of the answers would be nearly the same or identical for the latest release of the... --- ## Post 31 by @anon42475305 — 2024-11-28T17:00:18Z And the same should apply to Google apps as default. --- ## Post 32 by @anon48875053 — 2024-11-28T17:01:32Z Yes, but you aren’t getting Google Certified if you don’t include all the bloat. EU should just kill this certification bullshit and MEETS\_DEVICE\_INTEGRITY check. --- ## Post 33 by @anon42475305 — 2024-11-28T17:03:59Z Exactly which is anti-competitive. It’s hard enough to get people to switch from default apps, and you can’t even include sane default apps if you want play certification. --- ## Post 34 by @Astatine — 2024-11-28T17:11:38Z The statistics show as well; Chrome dominates the mobile browser market. ![mobile-browser-statistics](//forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/b/b5a6529c718ff5181b77f33b2ad2f0b19d18226e.png) --- ## Post 36 by @Tech-Trooper — 2024-11-29T06:09:35Z People on this sub go crazy to defend Google dont know anything about monopoly. The magnitude of Google owning android and pushing the default browser and search engine and Samsung or proton’s practices is completely different. Thats why eu defined gatekeepers and go after big tech. --- ## Post 37 by @win11.shading291 — 2024-12-03T05:37:30Z Yep, I agree with @Tech-Trooper and @anon42475305, we just need to go back in time a little with the Microsoft case and IE. [United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp). Google is doing exactly the same, but the antitrust actions have been really weak in the past years. --- ## Post 38 by @bluemonk — 2024-12-03T13:23:11Z It’s preinstalled only on androids, nothing else. Everyone else on other platforms can choose whatever they want. They choose chrome for some reason. That doesn’t make it a monopoly. --- ## Post 39 by @exaCORE — 2024-12-03T14:15:30Z Most people just use the default. Thats why its a monopoly --- ## Post 40 by @bluemonk — 2024-12-03T14:23:57Z The only default is only on android though? People choose chrome over default safari & edge. --- ## Post 41 by @anon42475305 — 2024-12-03T14:35:06Z At least read my post before responding. I wrote: > [@anon42475305](#): > > No one else can compete with Chrome because it’s preinstalled on Android, and no one can compete with Google because it’s the default everywhere. Chrome is pre-installed on Android and Chromebooks and Google Search is the default on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, all three major browser (with their own engines). No one is arguing that Chrome is a monopoly for being a superior product, as I wrote in my other post: > [@anon42475305](#): > > You can’t use your dominant position in one market to compete in another. They use the legitimate dominance of Chrome to unfairly advantage Google Search, thus they have an anti-competitive monopoly. --- ## Post 42 by @cupcake — 2024-12-03T18:38:28Z Hopefully the us won’t just be all talk and no bite this time around. Google need to be decoupled from chrome. They’re not a safe maintainer when they try to introduce something like devices attestation targeting the open web, indirectly via chrome dominance. Re: [Your Computer Should Say What You Tell It To Say | Electronic Frontier Foundation](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-say-what-you-tell-it-say-1) --- ## Post 43 by @dumpster — 2024-12-03T18:42:34Z They also used the legitimate dominance of Gmail and Youtube to advantage Chrome. By optimizing some of the most popular sites in the world for their own browser, they anticompetitively make their browser the best. --- ## Post 44 by @xe3 — 2024-12-04T03:53:37Z > [@bluemonk](#): > > The only default is only on android though? People choose chrome over default safari & edge. Android is the most used operating system in the world. There is of course also ChromeOS (which adds a few hundred million more users). But in any case, even if we ignore ChromeOS, the correlation between (1) the rise of Chrome and (2) the rise of Android is pretty clear to my eye. This chart shows Chrome’s rise in global marketshare (yellow line) overlayed over global smartphone sales (blue bars): ![chrome_x_smartphone_sales-small](//forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/2X/7/7344af956128117918cf46e80c8054fcd384ded0.png) Correlation is not always causation, but in this case it seems fairly safe to assume it’s more than simple correlation. I don’t think it is coincidental that the mobile OS market is dominated by a duopoly of two (Google, Apple), and that same duopoly are the only ones who own web browsers that have managed to gain meaningful marketshare in the smartphone era. With small exceptions like Microsoft Edge (which has its own built in advantage of being pre-installed on the most popular desktop OS). To my knowledge, there has been _only one_ browser in the 21st century to gain widespread mainstream adoption organically (as in without owning a platform to promote or preinstall the browser on). I’m not saying it all comes down to being pre-installed, but I am saying it’s too big of an advantage and a correlation to be ignored. --- ## Post 46 by @jonah — 2024-12-04T07:49:20Z It would basically _have_ to be a consortium of mainly-corporate developers, similar to Linux (like I suggested earlier), FreeBSD, and all these other majorly used open-source projects. Having technology consortiums that develop software is in no way a new or unique concept, so there’s a clear roadmap and precedent here… There would be probably no overall improvement in the browser space when it comes to privacy in this situation, but at least it would be harder for Google to keep overtly adding features which _solely_ benefit Google at the detriment of users, as they currently do. I’m still highly skeptical this will happen anyways, especially with the incoming justice department. --- ## Post 47 by @KevPham — 2025-04-21T18:46:07Z > **[Chrome on the chopping block as Google’s search antitrust trial moves forward](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/chrome-on-the-chopping-block-as-googles-search-antitrust-trial-moves-forward/)** > > The court ruled that Google has a search monopoly. Now, we learn the consequences. Update as the remedy phase of this antitrust case happens: > With opening arguments beginning today, the US Justice Department will seek to convince the court that Google should be forced to divest Chrome, unbundle Android, and make other foundational changes. But Google will attempt to paint the government’s position as too extreme and rooted in past grievances. No matter what happens at this trial, Google hasn’t given up hope it can turn back time. The DOJ already has an advantage as Google is already deemed guilty. They are simply trying to figure out how this guilty verdict should be carried out. > The Department of Justice (DOJ) has a major advantage here: Google is guilty. It [lost the liability phase](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/google-loses-dojs-big-monopoly-trial-over-search-business/) of this trial resoundingly, with the court finding Google violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by “willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power.” As far as the court is concerned, Google has an illegal monopoly in search services and general search advertising. The purpose of this trial is to determine what to do about it, and the DOJ [has some ideas](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/11/welcome-to-googles-nightmare-us-reveals-plan-to-destroy-search-monopoly/). Google is attempting to avoid a sale by having less exclusivity in search contracts and allowing Android OEMs more freedom to preload apps. > Google has already announced its [preferred remedies](https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/public-policy/doj-search-remedies-apr-2025/) in this case, which amount to less exclusivity in search contracts and more freedom for Android OEMs to choose app preloads. Google says it would also accept additional government oversight to ensure it abides by these remedies. > > In the remedy phase, Google will try to portray the Justice Department’s proposal as heavy-handed and emblematic of the agency’s “interventionist agenda.” We expect to see Google looking for any opportunity to make the DOJ look out of touch with the realities of technology today. --- ## Post 48 by @anon88979181 — 2025-04-28T23:59:26Z Some more commentary and analysis on this matter: > **[Is Chrome Even a Sellable Asset?](https://daringfireball.net/2025/04/is_chrome_even_a_sellable_asset)** > > It’s hard to come up with a buyer who could afford to pay a high price for Chrome and who would pass regulatory muster as its new owner. And if Chrome is not worth a high price, or simply isn’t sellable at one, then why is the DOJ trying to force... --- ## Post 49 by @Cincinnatus — 2025-04-29T11:30:48Z > [@anon48875053](#): > > Samsung devices come with Samsung Browser, Xiaomi devices come with Mi Browser, but nobody is using those because they’re worse than Chrome. I disagree with that. I think Samsung Browser is much better than Chrome, but the default search engine in SB is stilll Google.