Yes, ClosedAI and Perplexity could’ve created a chromium fork if they need a browser but they didn’t. Google won’t give up easily but if Chrome is sold, they will surely notify through mails and intuitive popups its not going to same old Google Chrome and farewell notes. The buyers are fishing for large userbase who won’t read and care about privacy and T&C. Who knows they can try redefine browsing experience like Arc browser.
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Unrelated to Title, but about choice screens, the DOJ isn’t convinced they are working mainly due to Google’s existing brand recognition.
Slide prrsentation from the DOJ below
This is so insanely dumb.
Pure government overreach.
There is no corporation in the world that could afford Chrome and manage it better than Google. If Google is forced to sell Chrome, it’s almost guaranteed that all the users will get more screwed than they currently are.
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It’s what I’ve said before more or less:
Why doesn’t the Justice system just split them into separate companies (independent of Google or any big tech) or otherwise just for example with Meta now also having a anti-trust on their way and may be forced to sell Whatsapp and Instagram
why doesn’t the justice system become “If Meta loses, they have to transfer Ownership of Whatsapp to Signal Foundation”
Since signal can’t really have the funding to maintain Whatsapp, at least separating the companies is the safest option with again none in the big tech allowed to buy them nor access anything nor can the company splitted can access the previous big tech’s resources or data.
Like seriously who thinks that forcing to sell their products Which is valued in the billions is a good idea when only big tech can afford them? Jesus Christ.
Do better.
It reminds me of a good point that was brought up in the surveillance capitalism book I’ll try to quote it later
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Regardless of whether you believe the government should have the power to regulate private companies in this way, the fact is they do and have had since 1890 when the Sherman Act was passed. It isn’t really accurate to describe it as government overreach when, like it or not, they are acting firmly within the bounds of their authority within the current legal system. Anyways, that is really besides the point.
Fundamentally, the problem is that this action is coming way too soon when the only effective remedy might very well be forcing Google to sell Chrome, consequences be damned. If the government were going to step in, they might as well have done so a decade ago when it would have been much easier to address Chrome’s monopoly and when the fallout would’ve been far more manageable.
So while I agree that a forced sale of Chrome almost certainly can’t end well, I also don’t see anyone suggesting any reasonable alternatives to stifle Google’s illegal monopoly.
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bro I literally suggested a reasonable alternative, split them into a separate company, One that none not even big tech can buy it nor can they access or share anything and vice versa legally.
This is the best course of action, forcing a sale isn’t going to make things really any better [Especially for surveillance capitalism, because of the valuation of these products, only big tech can afford them, with this method at least there’s an opportunity for these to become better and if not that’s a different story but it gives that opportunity at the very least.]
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That isn’t a realistic alternative. You can’t just spin-off a browser like Chrome; it doesn’t make any money by itself. On the contrary, it costs Google billions of dollars per year.
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lets not forget yahoo also wants to buy Chrome and probably give you some more toolbars with your toolbars.
The laws surrounding taking Chrome from Google are hugely outdated and in my opinion don’t fix any problems but rather move it somewhere else. As much as many around here hate Google, I’d rather see them keep Chrome than it go to some other company like Yahoo who really only have any money because of the patents they own.
I would have like to have seen Chrome developed by foundation with perhaps members such as the other chromium downstream browsers, (Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera etc). With maybe some tier for open source contributions like that from Vanadium, essentially a model where nobody “owns it”. To me shifting the this major browser to any specific company doesn’t solve any problems at all.
Sure one could argue taking it away from Google, means they don’t have monopoly over advertising/browser tech, but you know if you give it to OpenAI then there will be issues surrounding monopolistic use of their AI and the browser in the future.
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If perplexity gets a hold of chrome it will probably tank the privacy into oblivion. They want to know everything about us to provide hyper personalized ads.
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it’s not spinning off, it’s literally making it a separate company. (so Google Chrome for example, is no longer by Google/Alphabet Inc., It’s now a seperate team under the company: Chrome LLC or something)
as for the money it’s then on the team to decide how to fund it or the DOJ.
as I agree with @dngray I’d much rather Google did not take away chrome at this rate as giving them to another company is not going to do things any better. Or at my solution, which is seperate them, that way the team behind chrome have the opportunity and independence to make it better (and legally disallowing other companies and it to take control, share or request any data).
That is quite literally what spinning off means.
Mozilla has not succeeded in monetising Firefox in all the years they have tried, what makes you think Chrome can. And even if they could it would take years to acquire the required funding, should development just stop during that time?
did the research myself
in case people need to know (second definition):
to form a separate company from part of an existing company
though let me be frank, if the funding is figured out, spinning it off is the best solution, it is not selling it, period. With selling it, it’s basically another company to make it as worse as it gets (eg. If OpenAI buys it, expect alot of ChatGPT and stuff to be shoved in chrome user’s throats, if the company was separated, it at least gives the chrome team the opportunity to improve it not doing it after the seperation but instead the opportunity)
I like the idea of forming a new Chrome company, not selling it to other companies. This company could be owned by multiple other companies, the one mentioned above and potentially others. This way, it will need to serve all of these companies need, and above all remain a competitive product.
I think that many companies will want to invest in Chrome because they wantthe web to remain a great platform (see Shopify sponsoring LadyBird).
Will it be more bloated than today? For sure, they would need to turn Chome into an actual, profitable product, not just giving it for free to enable a monopoly and make plenty of money with Google Search.
I think this is a positive, too many people think software is just free for no reason - it isn’t.
Chrome is free because it makes the Google ecosystem more powerful, siphons data, and gives money to Google trough default Google Search.
Chromium is free so Google can dictate terms for other browsers (pratically removing MV2 from all browsers).
Firefox is free because it let Google be the default SE and therefore generate ad revenue.
Safari is Free because Google pays them for the SE, and Apple doesn’t want to be dependent on Google too much.
I can go on and on, but you got the point. It’s time we change this model and have actually substainable browsers.
If Chrome would cost 5$ for a 5year license, and assuming half of their 5 Billion users don’t quit/side-step, that would be $12.5B. Seems enough for 5 years.
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