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Chrome Google The Courts United States

DOJ Wants Google To Sell Chrome To Break Search Monopoly (9to5google.com) 108

Posted by BeauHD from the breaking-news dept.
According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Justice Department wants Google to sell off its Chrome browser as part of its ongoing search monopoly case. The recommendations will be made official on Wednesday. 9to5Google reports: At the top of the list is having Google sell Chrome "because it represents a key access point through which many people use its search engine." There are many questions about how that works, including what the impact on the underlying Chromium codebase would be. Would Google still be allowed to develop the open-source project by which many other browsers, like Microsoft Edge use? "The government has the option to decide whether a Chrome sale is necessary at a later date if some of the other aspects of the remedy create a more competitive market," reports Bloomberg. Google, which plans to appeal, previously said that "splitting off Chrome or Android would break them."

Bloomberg reports that "antitrust officials pulled back from a more severe option that would have forced Google to sell off Android." However, the government wants Google to "uncouple its Android smartphone operating system from its other products, including search and its Google Play mobile app store, which are now sold as a bundle." Meanwhile, other recommendations include licensing Google Search data and results, as well as allowing websites that are indexed for Search to opt out of AI training.
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DOJ Wants Google To Sell Chrome To Break Search Monopoly More

DOJ Wants Google To Sell Chrome To Break Search Monopoly

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  • chromium (Score:4)

    by tiananmen tank man ( 979067 ) on Monday November 18, 2024 @07:33PM (#64955957)

    who is going to buy it when you can already download the source code and fork it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by taustin ( 171655 )

      Somebody who wants others to download their source code and fork it, because they have the master key to the base?

    • Right. My mother can't figure out how to change her search engine, but she's going to make a Chromium fork.

      • ...but she's going to make a Chromium fork.

        Your mother is not in the running to buy Chrome, so no worries.

    • Haha, google maintains the production pull request review, and business continues as normal.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )
      Microsoft would love to own Chrome, because despite being a multi-trillion dollar company themselves and making it the default at every turn possible they can't seem to convince anyone to actually use Edge.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Teun ( 17872 )
        I believe present MS's Edge is based on a degoogled Chrome, the problem isn't the actual workings of either Chrome or Edge but the embedded spying.
        Either Google or MS would love to have a walled garden like Apple does, the browsers is a means to the end.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Mozilla gets paid for Google to be the default search engine. Maybe a spun-off Chrome could do the same.

      Another funding model is for companies that produce commercial Chromium based browsers to fund development. Some internet standard stuff is funded that way.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        Or maybe some operating system maker could buy Chrome, make it their default, point it to their own search engine, and periodically put out automatic updates to put it back as the default, etc etc.. /s. Isn't that how the 2nd and 3rd place browsers are managed today (Safari and Edge)?

        I'm just irked by this news. I know it's an appeal to worse problems, but Microsoft... come on. I suspect they're busting down on Google like this because of the Google/Apple phone duopoly, but it's hard to ignore the antitrus

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Maybe could take over. I'm serious.

          Chromium is fine as a browser engine, it just needs the additional APIs that Firefox has and some better decisions like not retiring the ad blocking stuff.

          It would save them a huge amount of work fixing and improving Firefox.

  • Does google actually get any meaningful traffic purely because they are the default in Firefox or on the iPhone or whatever or do people specifically use Google over the alternatives *cough*Bing*cough* because Google is better? I know I specifically use Google because it's better.

    • If you cared exclusively about the quality of the results you'd probably be using one of the meta engines that works with google (i.e. startpage). You're not so far away from the unwashed masses who definitely just use whatever is the default.

  • does the DOJ not realize that makes zero sense?

    brought to u by people who think the internet is a series of tubes!

    • Re:sell an open source project? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by taustin ( 171655 ) on Monday November 18, 2024 @07:50PM (#64956015) Homepage Journal

      Open source of not, somebody is still in control of it. And Google certainly benefits from controlling defaults that very few people ever bother to change.

    • Re: sell an open source project? (Score:4, Informative)

      by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Monday November 18, 2024 @07:57PM (#64956037)

      Chrome is not open source. Chromium is open source but Google takes Chromium and adds non-open bits to it to make Chrome.

  • Chrome is not a browser to Google (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BishopBerkeley ( 734647 ) on Monday November 18, 2024 @08:09PM (#64956069) Journal
    The decision to split Chrome makes sense. Chrome is a tool for Google to collect user data to exclude or to disadvantage competitors. As many may recall, Google went so far as to collect data from Private (sorry, "in cognito") tabs. https://techwireasia.com/2024/... [techwireasia.com] Chrome also gives Google an advantage over other browsers when it comes to using Google services, a fact Google leverages to get people to use Chrome. So, This will be the best thing to happen to Firefox, Opera and the like. Browsers could even become browsers, eventually, and not vehicles for collecting data for the browser maker.

    • Google's tracking of Chrome users in incognito mode from the server-side is not something nefarious, it's the same tracking they do to every browser. They got sued for not detecting incognito mode, something they can't do. It would be more anti-competitive if they gave themselves a way to detect incognito mode and not track Chrome's incognito users but still tracked every other browsers' equivalent.

    • Its a nice ploy by the DOJ. Chrome is essentially without value as it has always been free to download, install and update. It wouldn't really have any marketshare if it wasn't free. Therefore, it should have no downside to Google to offload it to some other organisation - unless it has some other (eg undisclosed) value to Google.

      This move by the DOJ forces Google to either let it go cheaply and peacefully, or confirm their subterfuge.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        Um... ChromeOS / Chromebooks? Android? Having a browser that isn't part of a MS OS? It's got a LOT of value to Google beyond a default search engine setting.

        • Not to mention being able to implement various technologies that are useful for their other products and have them be usable on the web for the majority of users without having to wait for someone like Microsoft or Apple to implement them first.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Even your own link points out that it's not Chrome collecting the data, it's Google that tries to match users using incognito mode up to their logged in profiles.

      They all do it to the same extent, sending data to the default search engine and offering to sync your browser data (usually with client side encryption).

    • The decision to split Chrome makes sense.

      It doesn't make sense. Chrome is Chromium + proprietary spying bits. So Google sells Chrome. Big deal. Google takes the latest Chromium source code, re-adds proprietary bits, and renames the result to Shiny Metal. Data collection continues with nothing more than a minor speed bump.

      As usual, the DoJ is useless. If they really wanted to be useful, they would require Google to allow multiple Android stores that are on even footing with Google's Play Store (detail to be worked out). As it stands, I had to stop

  • Chromium web browser. Like Microsoft and the open source Chromium web browser did.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by acroyear ( 5882 )

      Maintaining and updating the browser engines to ever changing new standards is not cheap, and just because it is open source doesn't mean everybody is just going to go do it. A large standards change (e.g., CSS 4) needs a coordinated effort to design, integrate, come up with the feature tests to be sure it implements the standard correctly, come up with regression tests for CSS 3 and 2 backwards compatibility. And with all of this, there's actually being on the standards committee (that's not free).

      None of

      • Maintaining and updating the browser engines to ever changing new standards is not cheap... None of this is cheap. If there wasn't Google's money behind it, It wouldn't happen... So if Chromium is forced into some consortium, it'll start to stagnate because of the lack of money. We'll get bug fixes (and Microsoft coding most of those) but the web standards work would be pretty much over and we'll be stuck with where we are currently.

        I don't see slowing down the change to web browsers as a bad thing. I think things change so fast now that everyone is stretched too thin, whether you're a web-dev or a web-framework-dev. It seems like everyone is always having to play catch-up. What works in 1 browser doesn't always work in another browser because the 2nd hasn't had time to implement something (maybe because it has a smaller dev team). I also don't think stagnation will happen; just the rate of change will slow. Also, stopping the new feat

  • All the reporting out of the DOJ was about the AppleGoogle default se deal. I always thought that was a false flag operation. Chrome is totally the way Google props up the monopoly.
  • And I hope with it, electron dies. But i doubt it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      All DOM-based GUI kits suck rotting eggs because DOM is ill suited for GUI's and a billion wrappers can't fix it.

    • It's true that I wouldn't be sorry to see that framework go away. They never were able to make it work on Nvidia without blurring everything.

  • by slowly turning into hot garbage.

  • Have they somehow not noticed it has turned to utter crap?

  • People use the Chrome web browser because it works well.
    I've tried Firefox, Brave and the obsolete Internet Explorer. Chrome is easier to use.
    What are they going to do? Force us to migrate to Microsoft Edge (barf)?

    I doubt the Justice Department doesn't even know the difference between the Chrome OS and the Chrome browser. Last I looked, a lot of them were still on AOL.

    • What do you find easier to use with Chrome than with Firefox?

    • Brave is Chrome. If you want it to act like Chrome, just turn shields off everywhere, and enjoy your ads and tracking. Not saying they block everything with their shields and that there are a small number of sites that I visit that I have to disable shields for in order to get something to work, but generally it gives me Chrome without having to add any ad or tracking blockers like umatrix or adblock.

  • Micosoft as well ? (Score:3)

    by Aussie ( 10167 ) on Monday November 18, 2024 @10:51PM (#64956289) Journal

    Microsoft has a search engine and a browser, wouldn't they just do the same as soon as Chrome is out of the picture ?

  • Then MS should spin off Edge. Didn't we go through this with IE and MS decades ago? Just because a product becomes popular doesn't mean it has to be yanked away from the owner/creator.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )
      Even if Google sells off and divests Chrome, there likely would be little to stop them from taking the chromium codebase and release EvenChromier a week later and do it all again.

      Just look at how well the forced AT&T breakup worked out, a few years later and it's all back to the same anyway.

      • Even if Google sells off and divests Chrome, there likely would be little to stop them from taking the chromium codebase and release EvenChromier a week later and do it all again.

        As much as I would love to believe that governments are that incompetent, courts are usually smarter than that and if this happens the ruling would likely preclude them from doing so by using language barring them from ever creating, marketing, bundling, distribution or redistributing a web browser where "web browser" is defined as .

        I mean, if you lose your privileges to own a firearm or a car, for example, it's not like you can find some loophole where you are using something that every day people would co

  • The real issue here is lawyers don't understand the internet, search is the real monopoly issue - it's a service that is the real issue - but there's zero comprehension of this in the DOJ which is made painfully clear here. This 'idiocy' in a punishment would be like punishing Ford for being a monopoly on Model T vehicles way back when and then ordering them to stop subsidizing toll roadways. Hopefully. Google says no. Draws this out in litigation and REAL lawyers and lawmakers who actually understand tec

  • Google should tell the DOJ that they're looking into selling Chrome off to Bytedance.

  • Trump DOJ won't push this (Score:3)

    by Ickyban ( 2713241 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2024 @08:58AM (#64957017)
    GOP has proven to be pro-business but anti-consumer. This will die under a new DOJ regime.

  • If Google is divested of Chrome, then Firefox will lose out on a LOT of money. This would likely destroy the Mozilla Foundation... which could be a good thing? It likely won't be good.

    • You mean the Mozilla Foundation would have to actually be accountable for its expenses and spend money wisely? I see that as a good thing and maybe, just maybe, they'd stop making as many changes to the UI that upset so many of us here.

  • How about separating the Edge browser from Microsoft.

    Every trick Microsoft pulled to make you browse Edge instead of Chrome [theverge.com]

  • This is a good first step, but there needs to be more done here. The Original Sin of this wasn't the browser wars, but advertising revenue and the ad market generally. Divesting that from the rest of Google (and Alphabet) and forcing both Google Search and YouTube and everything else to pick from among advertising platforms on the open market would re-inject competition into some of these spaces.

    The creation of Bluesky as a viable market competitor to Twitter is a good start, but if we want to stop the priv

  • DOJ Wants Google To Sell Chrome To Break Search Monopoly

    Are you sure you wouldn't rather have a pony? Honestly, they're great - way better than being a super-killjoy :-)

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