The DOJ is asking the court to force Google to promptly and fully divest itself of Chrome, along with any data or other assets required for its continued operation. It is essentially aiming to take the Chrome user base—consisting of some 3.4 billion people—away from Google and hand it to a competitor. The government will vet any potential buyers to ensure the sale does not pose a national security threat. During the term of the judgment, Google would not be allowed to release any new browsers. However, it may continue to contribute to the open source Chromium project.
I wonder who will buy it if this happens. Tencent and the like are probably not allowed. Amazon doesn’t really need it. Broadcom and Oracle could make an offer. Netflix might be interested. Apple is probably not. Microsoft would face extreme scrutiny. Meta is probably a front runner, but most likely, if the rulling stands and the current administration does not writhdraw, a back room deal was already made to hand it over to X…
Wow.
Holy shit.
I genuinely cannot believe this ruling came down with Trump and his cronies running the DoJ.
I guess they were too busy freeing Jan 6th rioters and purging the FBI.
This is actually good news… I did not think that could happen any more.
I hope they have to sell off Android too, fuck Google and their ‘
don’tbe evil’ bullshit.EDIT: Derp, this is not an actual adjudicated final ruling.
But still, the DoJ is continuing to pursue this with ferocity, still genuinely shocked this whole thing hasn’t been obliterated by Trump’s goons.
Here’s what will happen:
Trump will pardon Google for its monopolistic business measures, in exchange of cutting back DEI (read: allowing discrimination against minoritiies) and promoting conservative values (read: nazi propaganda minus the swastikas) instead.
That’s because his goons are going to “buy” it and use it to manipulate the searches.
Google’s been a public enemy of the fascists since it wouldn’t let them post outright Nazi propaganda to YouTube.
Unless I’m reading this wrong, Google would remain controlling search, its the browser (Chrome) and their OS (Android) that would have to be spun off.
Google needs to be broken up. It’s been needed for a long time.
Him stealing it for his friends to manipulate and it needing to be broken up can both be true.
“That’s a nice search engine you got there, it will look nice when I give it to my friends.”
Maybe: Elon found a way to give himself Google and Sundar can’t do much about it?
Elon getting Chrome would be the best thing that could happen to Chrome.
… In that Elon would wildly, catastrophically mismanage it, lose money, and possibly blow it all up.
I don’t give a fuck about chrome personally but good. They’ve only pushed garbage with their majority market share.
Android on the other hand, holy fuck take it away from Google faster. Every single thing added since Android 11 has been broken or fucking stupid or both. Anybody else at thos point.
They’ve only pushed garbage with their majority market share.
That is not really true. I am as skeptical of their intention as the next guy but they have also pushed a lot of security enhancements and other decent standards (among some more crappy ones).
id like this to happen but its looking increasingly unlikely that it will
Apparently simply being popular is enough to count as a monopoly even when there are multiple other browsers readily available for free? It’s extortion, IMO.
(I know that the case is more complicated than that, with the integration of Chrome and Google Search being an issue, but I think my point still stands.)
There are more reasons why Chrome is a monopoly than just Google search being integrated.
Check out how few other browsers aren’t just chrome in a trenchcoat, for starters.
Hey, there’s plenty! There’s Safari, and Firefox, and Firefox’s 10 radicalized children…
Joking aside, you’re right. Safari requires a specific kind of device, so if you’re not on an Apple device it’s basically just Chrome or Firefox. Edge is Chromium. Brave is Chromium. Opera is Chromium. Vivaldi is Chromium. It’s Chrome all the way down.
I don’t see anything anticompetitive in that. Many browsers use Chromium because that’s what users apparently prefer. Look at the history of Firefox’s market share or the market share of the original Edge. Users had those options and rejected them despite the fact that the former had an enormous head start and the latter was bundled with Windows.
Many browsers use chromium because it’s cheaper and easier to bundle blink than to roll your own
Even Microsoft couldn’t compete against Chrome and abandoned their own engine.
