from Hacker News

DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome

by redm on 11/18/24, 10:24 PM with 1438 comments

by talldayo on 11/18/24, 10:37 PM
https://archive.ph/PPGGV
by rkharsan64 on 11/19/24, 10:27 AM
People here seem to be underestimating the advantages that Google gets just because of Chrome:
- When you sign in to Google, you sign in browser-wide. Google now gets all of your browsing data, perfect for advertising. (If you ever doubt it, go check out Google Takeout. You'll be shocked at the amount of data you see there.)
- They have special APIs and features that they get to use, and nobody else. Only because they own Chrome. [1]
- They get to move forward with enabling and pushing features that allow for more advertising: see Manifest v3, FLoC.
- Google specifically serves a worse version of Search on Firefox for Mobile. You have to get an extension to get the full experience.
This isn't an isolated attempt. You can see more of the same thing with Android.
- AOSP (the open source counterpart of Android) is now unusable. It doesn't ship with most essential apps, including a Phone app. In previous versions of Android, all of these were a part of AOSP.
- Most third party launchers/stores struggle to implement features because they are only available for Google themselves.
- The signing in with Google thing from above continues here too: you sign in to Google system-wide.
[1]: https://x.com/lcasdev/status/1810696257137959018
by legitster on 11/18/24, 11:28 PM
I'm all for competition and increasing consumer choices, but the government is really not making a case that this is supposed to help consumers.
The only reason I still use Chrome is because I already use other Google products and they integrate well together. There are many other better options out there otherwise, and they are all free. Breaking out Chrome from Google will not in any way benefit me as a consumer.
> The agency and the states have settled on recommending that Google be required to license the results and data from its popular search engine
> They are also prepared to seek a requirement that Google share more information with advertisers and give them more control over where their ads appear.
It sounds like the end goal of this is to enrich other companies, not customers. And if the DOJ has their way, they want to crack open Google's vault of customer data and propagate it across the internet.
Not only does this sound extremely bad for consumers, the DOJ is trying to completely change Google's business model and dictate how they are supposed to make money. Regardless of how you feel about Google, this seems like a far overreach from the DOJ on finding and fixing market manipulation.
by jeswin on 11/19/24, 8:19 AM
I'm totally fine with this, but I wish they would do the same thing with Apple. Google's platform, at the very least is open and I can run my own apps.
One could ask, "How is Apple a Monopoly, and do they abuse that position?". In my view it is, since you can't have a business or build connected hardware without an iOS app. And as for abusing that position for gaining market share, there are just too many examples starting with say, watches.
by curiouscat321 on 11/18/24, 10:45 PM
Who would possibly buy Chrome? Letting any of the large tech companies purchase it (the only possible buyers) would just give someone else monopolistic power.
Chrome can’t exist as a standalone business without being even more consumer hostile.
by SpEd3Y on 11/19/24, 9:30 AM
Arguably out of the big 4 (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon) Google gave the most back to humanity: Android, Chromium, Kubernetes, Google Office suite, the Go programming language, Tensor Flow, Alpha Fold (and Google DeepMind), donating to Linux, etc. All these are things everyone has access to precisely because Google is such a big player and can afford to lose money on innovation that fails. What did Microsoft and Apple gave us? Yet Google gets targeted while Microsoft, Apple and Amazon are left alone. Why is that?
by lemoncookiechip on 11/18/24, 11:08 PM
I'm very confused. Chrome is just Chromium with Google's own Telemetry. Chromium is open and maintained primarily by Google.
Sure, there's a userbase, but you need a business model to take advantage of it in the first place because the benefit was the Telemetry (Google's) and Google's Ecosystem.
Also, the article specifically mentions Chrome, NOT Chromium (which again, is open), so what incentive would Google have to maintaining the project without their own version of it? Would they be bared from starting a new one? Would someone else take over Chromium? Who would have the resources to do such a thing other than say Microsoft who currently uses a Chromium browser?
Why not just go for the jugular and separate Adsense from the rest of Alphabet? It's the main driving force in all their dark patterns for all other platforms (Youtube, Android, Chrome, Search...)
by elmerfud on 11/18/24, 10:49 PM
So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different.
Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to leverage what you do is already there. The dynamic here is fundamentally different than many other monopolies of the past due to this fact. It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because they feel there is no other viable option to offer a similar experience or is it because they choose that because it feels to them to be the best choice to make in a free market.
by moody__ on 11/19/24, 10:53 AM
A lot of discussion in this thread is pointing out that chromium is a thing and that it would be hard for a company to properly fund a web browser without the backing of a tech giant whose more direct revenue stream is elsewhere. I think this showcases a larger issue with the web as it stands today. Why has building a browser for the "open web" become such a complex piece of software that it requires the graces of a tech giant to even keep pace? Can nothing be done to the web to lower the barrier to entry such that an independent group (a la OpenBSD or similar) can maintain their own? Right now it seems this is only possible if you accept that you'll only be able to build on top of chromium.
I know the focus by the DOJ here seems to be more on search and less on the technical control that Google has over the web experience through implementation complexity, however I can only hope that by turning off the flow of free cash more "alternative" browsers are given some space to catch up. Things like manifest V3 show that Google is no stranger to tightening the leash if the innovation of web technologies impact their bottom line, I'd like to have a web where this type of control isn't possible.
by fidotron on 11/19/24, 12:46 PM
One of the hidden costs of Chrome on society is it supports radically ramping up the complexity of web specifications in order to extend the moat around it. It is one of the most extraordinary software engineering projects ever done, with multiple components each of which are game changers. (ANGLE, v8 and libwebrtc immediately come to mind). It is no accident Rust spun out of an effort to compete with this complexity explosion without having infinite financial resources.
Personally I would prioritize spinning off Android though, and partly pragmatically since at least that would have a clear revenue stream. Maybe the Chrome App Store will experience a sudden surge in importance. A degoogled Chrome OS could almost start to look better than the direction Windows is going in.
by andrewflnr on 11/18/24, 10:51 PM
What would that even mean? Chrome doesn't make money. Who would buy it, except maybe someone who plans to do something even more nefarious?
by freedomben on 11/19/24, 5:08 PM
> They are also prepared to seek a requirement that Google share more information with advertisers and give them more control over where their ads appear.
I don't think Google are fully clean in all this by any stretch, but for all the people saying that Google is just privacy-violating data junkies, did you catch that aspect of the DOJ statement?? The DOJ wants the advertisers to have MORE information (about us). That makes me sick.
by justahuman74 on 11/18/24, 10:51 PM
What is the actual asset to buy precisely? The code is already mostly open. You'd be paying for a user base who could leave at any moment?
by Chatting on 11/19/24, 2:16 AM
This absolutely needs to happen.
The main problem is that, thanks to Chrome's massive market share, Google is in a position where they can effectively dictate the future of the Web as a platform.
We've already seen a few instances of this: Manifest v3 and FLoC/Privacy Sandbox, for example, were met with widespread opposition, but eventually they made their way into Chrome; WEI, on the other hand, was withdrawn due to backlash, but make no mistake, it will come back at some point.
The current state of Web standards can be summed up as: whatever Chrome does is the standard. The other browsers have to follow along, either because their modest market share doesn't afford them the luxury to be incompatible with Chrome, or because they're based on Chromium, so they hardly have a choice. The only exception is Apple, but let's be honest, they only do so because of their own business interests.
Ideally, Chrome/Chromium should be spun off as an independent non-profit foundation set up to act in the public interest. Obviously there would be trade-offs: a slower development cycle, new features taking longer to be shipped, etc. But in my opinion that's far preferrable to having Google continue to exert this level of control over the Web.
Unfortunately, the current administration has two months left in its term, so it's not going to happen.
by Ameo on 11/19/24, 11:03 AM
My primary worry here is that this would hurt the open web - whether or not splitting out Chrome into a separate business would be good for consumers in and of itself.
It's true that Google adds a lot of things to Chrome or their own benefit or even the potential detriment of others like Mozilla.
That being said, they also do a tremendous amount of work to push the state of the web forward and, most importantly, they release Chromium 100% free and open source. That's not to mention the other incredibly impactful free projects that have stemmed from it like V8/NodeJS, Electron, Puppeteer, Chrome Devtools, etc.
On the flip side, it's been argued that Google's control over web standards is too strong and they can essentially strong-arm other browser vendors into implementing whatever they want. It's also been argued that Google pushes too fast and makes it impossible for other vendors to keep up, leading people to use Chrome if they want the latest + greatest web features.
But when we look at the other browser vendors, I personally feel like Google seems like a much better alternative. Mozilla feels like a dried up husk of the company it apparently once was and Apple pushes a buggy, closed-source, locked-down browser which has been purposely held back from critical features in the past (I think they did that to try to keep users off web apps and keep them paying Apple huge app store fees).
----
Anyway, I certainly have very mixed feelings on this one. My main hope is that this doesn't spell the beginning of the end for Chromium because I truly believe it's a piece of software that has provided immense public benefit.
by bhawks on 11/18/24, 11:48 PM
This feels like a feel good headline for DoJ that doesn't materially impact the Search/Ads ecosystem nor improve things for the end consumer.
Chromium exists - literally as a baseline for several other corporations to build a browser.
If you wanted to do something meaningful - you must separate search and ads, everything else is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
by da25 on 11/19/24, 12:05 AM
Thinking this through, it’s hard to even imagine how such a selloff and transfer could happen. Chrome, which is built downstream from the open-source Chromium, is a behemoth project with development spanning nearly every domain — rendering, GPU ops, WASM, AI, js engines, web standards, and much more.
Sure, Google doesn’t always prioritize developments that don’t align with its ad monopoly. Still, Chrome remains a polished & widely used product.
As far as I can see, it would be best to establish a "Chromium Foundation," akin to the Linux Foundation, with emphasis on advancing web standards, unencumbered by corporate priorities.
That said, the more entrenched monopoly Google maintains lies in its "Search Experience," integrated with complementary products like Maps, YouTube, Android, and others.
I don't see any other viable alternative that serves the needs of most users across the board. Bing doesn’t come close, and while private search engines cater to power users, the average web user rarely switches search engines. For many, Google Search has become the de facto entry point to the internet and their view of the Web.
by charliebwrites on 11/18/24, 11:04 PM
Plot Twist:
Google sells Chrome, then immediately forks Chromium and starts a new “completely unrelated” browser with all the same features called “Magnesium”
by milesward on 11/18/24, 10:49 PM
"make" Mozilla buy it, give em a heaping grant from the Library of Congress to keep the open web open, and be the engine behind every browser keeping things fair... sounds good to me!
by gerash on 11/18/24, 11:18 PM
Looking at this case and the recent case against SpaceX (which is required to only hire US permanent residents and citizens) for not hiring asylees, makes me think DOJ which has the bandwidth to only work on few very important cases isn't doing a good job overall.
by titzer on 11/19/24, 4:15 PM
The conflict of interest between owning search, being a provider of user identity/login, and effectively owning the entire internet ads marketplace, and being a provider of the "user agent" (remember when people thought of that way!?) is immense.
This should have happened years ago.
TBF, I worked in Chrome almost 7 years and I didn't see anything outright nefarious. I don't know how user-hostile decisions (like breaking ad blockers and serving advertisers better) get made, but they do get made, or defaulted into. Trust me, the leadership of Chrome knows exactly how to justify its $300 million+ budget to the rest of Google, revenue numbers and all.
by oliwarner on 11/19/24, 12:16 PM
You could make all these arguments against Android, no? Perhaps moreso while they maintain the garden wall.
It isn't wrong to point out how harmful to society monopolies are, and to identify them, but the development of Chrome, Android, etc, do also present genuine value to anybody who wants that code.
Without Google making money from the search/targeting/advertising model, who is paying for Chrome, Firefox and Google Search? Who is paying for Android after third party marketplaces take off?
I'm not making any recommendations here except that I think we need to be careful what we wish for. Tools we rely on might evaporate.
by lanthissa on 11/19/24, 2:53 PM
Why is this a better solution than forcing chrome to have no defaults and select an option just like IE.
Chrome google pulled the entire browser market forward by investing in chrome. A stand alone chrome is just going to make money by charging by default status or be bought by someone else trying to create push their defaults.
by ApolloFortyNine on 11/18/24, 11:29 PM
Again, no idea how Google's supposed monopoly of web browsers is worse for the consumer than Apple's actual monopoly on iPhone browsers (they're all Safari under the hood) and on App stores.
by adamtaylor_13 on 11/19/24, 9:39 AM
This is exactly the blunt, hammer-based solution I would expect from a bunch of crusty bureaucrats.
It seems none of them bothered to read Kagi’s outstanding suggestions on the topic. [1]
1: https://blog.kagi.com/dawn-new-era-search
by fizlebit on 11/19/24, 3:40 PM
Am I alone in thinking that all the stuff I get for free (in exchange for some amount of targeted advertising) from Google is pretty cool and that these attempts to break up big tech are going to be very bad for consumers and the economy and is just punishing successful companies that produce products that customers want to use. You all can use mosaic/edge if you want to.
by tannhaeuser on 11/19/24, 1:33 PM
Selling off Chrome might help, or it might just be the lesser evil/a pawn sacrifice in order to prevent split up of AdSense from Google Search (which is in obvious conflict of interest, as Google's ad business is already under scrutiny under alleged price fixing along with Meta), or of YouTube. Neither Google's acquisition of YouTube nor that of DoubleClick should've been allowed in the first place under any reasonable antitrust enforcement, the purpose of which is to prevent exactly this kind of monopoly.
by zb3 on 11/18/24, 11:02 PM
Chrome can't really be sold unless it'd mean Google is not allowed to maintain a fork of Chromium.
While you can sell access to the existing installations (control over the update url), if Google continues to invest development into a fork (and just drops the information about it on Google frontpage) then that new fork will become defacto Chrome.
EDIT: To clarify, the value of Chrome is not only the userbase, but also its placement in Google products and importantly, the development effort on a scale few can afford.
by azinman2 on 11/18/24, 10:57 PM
Browsers are complicated enough that I don’t see how a company could do the right thing without it being subsidized by a larger business. I feel like this is paving the ground for a Chinese startup to come take its place.
by IncreasePosts on 11/18/24, 11:34 PM
What kind of continuity can be expected when the head of the DoJ is a political appointee by the president, and we're getting a new president in 2 months with radically different ideas compared to our current one?
by glzone1 on 11/18/24, 10:47 PM
Maybe one of the big spyware players will buy chrome
by DCH3416 on 11/18/24, 11:36 PM
Stuff like this. It feels like there's less of a case here than with Microsoft. In the 90s, Windows nearly became _the_ OS, especially had Apple folded like it nearly did. There really wasn't an alternative in the emerging home computer space as well as the OEM shenanigans among other things. Threatening to pull office for Mac if Apple failed to include IE.
I'm struggling to see how Google is truly behaving monopolistic here. Chrome is available for compile, and is part of other browsers like edge. It's like suggesting linux has a monopoly because almost all web servers run on it.
by doc_manhat on 11/19/24, 8:50 AM
ITT: panicked Google employees try to convince you this is a very bad thing
by tantalor on 11/19/24, 3:13 PM
"Big tech companies aren't allowed to distribute their own web browser" is going to come as a big surprise to Microsoft and Apple.
by phyzix5761 on 11/18/24, 11:10 PM
I'm reading this on a non Chrome browser and I can search for it on a non Google search engine. I don't understand where the monopoly is.
by coretx on 11/19/24, 12:31 PM
We went from hardware we could trust & control and gopher + plain html to hardware that spies on us and have limited control over and fully turing complete software with access to all hardware & DRM. - and no sensible way out.
Maybe not only Google, but everyone needs to rethink the concept of a browser.
by rkagerer on 11/19/24, 7:17 PM
Google says the proposals would harm consumers and developers
Hey Google - I'm both, and your trend over the years of degrading products I used to love with increasingly user-hostile choices has already caused me more harm than I can imagine could arise out of fixing the incentives.
by citizenpaul on 11/18/24, 11:00 PM
A much better decision would have been to require them to fund some amount of the various open source competitors so there can be alternatives. Makes as much sense as forcing them to sell a thing that has no market.
"Selling" off chrome is probably not even really possible in any reasonable business way.
by cerebra on 11/18/24, 10:42 PM
This...doesn't seem like a good idea.
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 on 11/19/24, 7:36 PM
No Javascript:
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/doj-will-push-goog...
No SNI:
https://web.archive.org/web/20241119090808if_/https://news.b...
by bloppe on 11/20/24, 7:11 AM
First, it's important to keep a clear view of what's actually for sale here. Chromium is an open source project that already forms the basis of other browsers (most prominently Edge and Brave) and does not include all the weird Google stuff that the the DOJ takes issue with (tracking for ads, special privileges for Google websites, etc.). Chrome is basically a thin layer of shittiness on top of Chromium. That thin layer of shittiness is what's for sale. Its entire value is derived from the fact that it's already dominant. So whoever buys it is effectively buying that user base, but not much of a technical moat to keep them all in.
Who might buy it? I can list them:
- Apple
- Microsoft
That's it. Turns out you can't properly invest in a Browser without conflicts of interest. Apple might buy it to help drive more users toward the App Store. Microsoft might buy it for similar, all-too-familiar reasons. They both have the funds and incentives to want this massive "captive" audience, and the means to exploit it, and I can't think of anybody else who would care enough to bid much.
So what would happen to Google? That's the real question. Seems like the point is not selling anything. The point is to ban Google from having influence over any web browser. I wonder if Judge Mehta will be able to craft an effective order to that end.
by ulrikrasmussen on 11/19/24, 9:40 AM
Finally! My only concern is that this should have been done much sooner, in particular before the recent anti-trust ruling that basically forced Google's hands to pull the rug under Mozilla.
Google's sole business is to make people look at content they don't want to look at (ads), and I find it deeply problematic that they not only control the operating system and software distribution platform for a large fraction of devices, but now also the browser and by extension the standards of what used to be the open web.
by czhu12 on 11/18/24, 11:17 PM
Not sure how this works but if some party purchased chrome, isn't the best business for it to sell advertising back to google? And then sell the default search engine back to google?
by bilal4hmed on 11/18/24, 10:47 PM
This seems like the best case scenario for them.....losing Android would have been a far bigger problem
by pjmlp on 11/19/24, 10:01 AM
And thus confirming the whole point about Chrome being the new IE discussion from yesterday.
by willywanker on 11/21/24, 1:57 AM
I was one of the very few voices against using Chrome when it debuted in 2008. How on earth did it make sense, even for the supposedly enlightened programmer/IT tech/gamer/nerd crowd to use a browser made by a company whose business model depends on profiling user data to sell ads? And mind that in 2008 they had already ditched the 'don't be evil' slogan for those naive enough to think that businesses are anything but amoral.
And splitting hairs over Chrome vs Blink (the engine), or switching to the multiple other Blink wrapper browsers that are there, or Chrome's controlled opposition Firefox() makes no sense either; by using any of these you only help maintain Google's hegemony over the web and its standards.
() - they don't get to call themselves a scrappy little privacy crusading rebel when bankrolled by Mozilla whose multi million dollar revenue remains primarily from Google being the default search engine in Firefox, plus their own shenanigans.
by nashashmi on 11/19/24, 3:59 PM
They can sell Chrome, keep Chromium, rebrand ChromeOS to nAndroidOS, and launch a new browser called Google DrEdge (based on Chromium).
Full circle ⭕. Back to where we started.
by AlienRobot on 11/19/24, 7:56 PM
DuckDuckGo has a web browser. Brave has a search engine. Kagi has a web browser.
It seems weird to single Google for this. Wasn't the core issue behind this that these other search engines couldn't compete with Google?
Vivaldi is a much better browser than their Chromium re-skins. Perhaps if their browsers were better people would use them instead of using Chrome. Additionally, perhaps if their search was better than Google, they would use it as well!
Google shoves AI overviews in your face now, and if that sucks, the only reasonable alternative is to use Bing currently. I can't use Brave's search or Mojeek. Brave ignores underscores. Mojeek doesn't even have a business model so it stops anyone from actually using it as a search engine. Yandex is full of results in Russian.
I wish someone would tell me what is this fabled competitor to Google that would benefit from crippling Google because so far I haven't been able to find one. I'd say the only engines better than Google are Wiby and Kiddle, because they focus on a specific niche instead of trying to compete on general web search.
by LatteLazy on 11/19/24, 12:42 PM
Every time these cases come up, I ask the same question: what is this supposed to actually achieve and how will it work?
Who will buy chrome? And how will they make a profit from doing so?
Presumably they will charge google for good to remain the default search engine? But then we will just end up in the same place as now won't we? (Chrome being a popular but not the only browser; Google being the default but not only search engine).
So how will this make the end user or the advertisers (don't forget, they are the consumer here, since they are paying, not the user) richer or happier or whatever else?
People seem stuck on "monopoly bad" and that something has to be done. But are not clear on what the harm is here, or how to prevent that harm. Instead, this is something and something has to be done...
by linuxhansl on 11/18/24, 11:17 PM
Slightly off-topic:
I am always baffled with the widespread use of Chrome.
On all my machines (including work) I use Firefox. Even on Android I disabled Chrome, so that the feed will have to use Firefox.
Chrome is neither faster nor more convenient than Firefox, so it is a bit of a mystery to me - I guess on Android it comes as the default.
by blazinDC on 11/30/24, 4:15 PM
It’ll be bought by a Chinese company, and then what?
by deburo on 11/19/24, 6:45 PM
Would this even survive the coming change of administration? Why attempt this now?
by xnx on 11/18/24, 11:24 PM
It would be a shame if the DOJ forced this. Google has the resources to continue to pressure Apple to allow non-nerfed Chrome on iOS.
That said, this might be my favorite of the DOJ remedies I've heard because it would probably do the least harm.
by shepherdjerred on 11/19/24, 12:12 AM
I would much rather Google be forced to fund alternative browsers (other than Firefox)
by kernal on 11/19/24, 5:13 PM
If Google is forced to sell off Chrome why would any company buy it? They wouldn't get the developers that work on Chrome / Chromium. They wouldn't get access to the proprietary Google services that Chrome uses so they would be buying a copy of Chromium. Google could then close the Chromium source code and develop a new closed source browser. The Chrome browser would then slowly die due to lack of development resources, money, and innovation while the new Google browser would quickly gain the market share that was taken away from them.
by Spivak on 11/18/24, 10:56 PM
Weird that this is so doom and gloom, the world's most popular browser decoupled from the ad machine. What's not to love? People champion Firefox and Brave constantly and they're independent browsers.
by NickC25 on 11/19/24, 3:03 PM
Could Google just circumvent this entirely by making Chrome 100% open source?
I realize Chrome is partially open source, but IIRC Google still has some special abilities that no fork has the ability to access.
by tgmatt on 11/18/24, 11:57 PM
Maybe this will lead to Chromium finally getting proper vertical tabs which Google clearly otherwise block due to it eating up horizontal real estate that would otherwise be used for ads.
by shadowgovt on 11/19/24, 4:26 PM
This will likely lead to a Safari hegemony. Possibly an Edge / Safari duopoly.
Chrome doesn't have a business model to make money. If it gets calved off into its own thing, it'll either need to find another line of business to supplement the cost of building and maintaining a browser, or it'll go bankrupt. Close-to-nobody is willing to pay money for a browser alone, so it's unlikely they'll be able to float a business on selling the browser itself.
by mihaic on 11/19/24, 1:19 PM
This feels like doing something just to do something. I hate the fact that Google owns Chrome just as much as the next person here, but what's going to happen next? Are you going to sell it to ByteDance since they have the biggest offer? Just having half a plan can be worse than having a full plan.
At the same time, it might be just a thread from the DOJ to get Google to play ball on something else, but it's hard to assume competence and forethought for something like this.
by afavour on 11/18/24, 11:02 PM
I don’t really understand how this would work and the article doesn’t really give me enough detail to know. But for me, Google abandoning their plans to disable third party cookies tells me everything I need to know: their ad business calls the shots and an ad company having monopoly over the browser market is an unequivocally bad thing.
I just have no idea how we get from here to there. And let’s be real, with Trump re-elected the chance of the DOJ following through with this is very low.
by jfoster on 11/19/24, 9:23 AM
I wonder what the bounds of this would be. Most people still think of Chrome as just a browser, but there is quite a bit of other stuff:
Chrome Web Store
ChromeOS
Chromebook (somewhat intertwined with Android)
Chromecast (discontinued, sort of; succeeded by Google TV Streamer)
Web.dev (not Chrome branded, but probably wouldn't exist if Google didn't start Chrome)
Also, I have to wonder, if breaking off Chrome makes sense to the DOJ, does breaking off Android also make sense? Is that the next piece that they will propose?
by jauntywundrkind on 11/18/24, 11:48 PM
This would be outrageously bad for the web.
Right now a healthy web ecosystem is Google's existential hedge, against all the closed platforms of the world coming to devour the web and Google's business.
Getting rid of Google as a patron for the web would be one of the most harmful damaging & awful things the DOJ could do this world. Strongly opposed, what a godforsaken heinous crime against humanity to consider leaving no one funding the web at scale.
by jfoster on 11/19/24, 9:30 AM
It feels odd to me that this was the first proposal from the DOJ, considering that the case initially seemed quite focused on the advertising side of Google's business:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_v._...
by fooker on 11/18/24, 10:56 PM
Something like YouTube would have been a much better idea.
by gigatexal on 11/19/24, 10:14 AM
I thought Trump could be bought off to make this go away like he flipped on the til too forced sale of ban. But this whole thing began under his last administration (sic):
“If Mehta accepts the proposals, they have the potential to reshape the online search market and the burgeoning AI industry. The case was filed under the first Trump administration and continued under President Joe Biden. It marks the most aggressive effort to rein in a technology company since Washington unsuccessfully sought to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago.”
The thing is chrome isn’t as sticky or important as the ads marketplace. Google would be wise to let chrome go and hold on to the cash cow that is the ads marketplace where they make most of their money.
by einpoklum on 11/19/24, 7:59 AM
Wow, what a world! Next they might make Microsoft sell of the army of evil monkeys that they got when they bought evil from Satan:
https://www.bbspot.com/2000/05/04/linux-kernel-delayed-by-mi...
(yes, that's 24-year-old humor, sorry.)
by seydor on 11/19/24, 8:59 AM
Antimonopoly action is good for the market, but let's be honest nobody will make a better chrome, at best they will inject ads or turn it to a walled garden. It will be a bad thing in the end for us web developers , and we will lose the last open platform.
Why is this considered a good move anyway? The obvious way to split google is to separate the buy side from the sell side of ads market
by yowayb on 11/19/24, 8:10 AM
I haven't read the article but I immediately see a few comments about benefitting consumers. I don't think that's the DOJ's charter. I think when you consider all the things that Google is to the government and to the people, this decision makes sense. It's weird that it becomes a discussion about what consumers want.
by CivBase on 11/19/24, 2:09 PM
How exactly does Chrome make money without leveraging the exact antitrust behaviors that are driving this decision?
Do they become like Firefox and make themselves dependent on Google to pay top dollar for the default search engine? Wouldn't that just make them beholden to their original owner anyways?
by dismalaf on 11/18/24, 11:54 PM
This is the strangest decision I've ever seen. Chrome isn't the default anywhere except Pixel branded devices (most or all of the Android OEMs have their own browsers) and you need to actually seek out and download Chrome from Google.com. So how will Google selling Chrome lead to less traffic towards Google? It seems the DOJ has cause and effect completely backwards.
IF Google is a monopoly that abuses search and ads, IMO it would make much more sense to split it like this: - Google Search - Ads - Consumer facing everything, so Chrome, Android, Pixel devices, Nest, etc... all together - YouTube
This kind of split would prevent Google dominating search, abusing their dominance of ads while also enabling their device division to become a proper competitor to Apple and Samsung.
Simply splitting off Chrome is weird, kills Chrome for absolutely no reason, does nothing to help consumers and most importantly doesn't prevent Google from dominated search and ads which is the whole point of the suit in the first place...
It's also strange that the DOJ is letting Apple, MS and Meta off the hook when those businesses clearly engage in anti-competitive practices.
by 1970-01-01 on 11/18/24, 11:27 PM
ByteDance has lots of extra cash. I hope DOJ is prepared to stop this from completely backfiring on the public.
by postepowanieadm on 11/19/24, 10:52 AM
Taking into account all the noise the EU is making about Internet, privacy, digital laws it's mind-bending that there is no the EU WebBrowser. There is Opera, there are original KHTML/Webkit creators - just use them and make an engine that's not adverts powered.
by melodyogonna on 11/19/24, 8:22 AM
Why does Google have to sell Chrome? Any potential acquirer could build their own browser with Chromium.
by mjevans on 11/18/24, 11:07 PM
Spin off, maybe. Make it something more akin to The Linux Foundation where a consortium of vested interests donate time and resources. This should also include public funds as part of civic infrastructure and national defense funding. BTW, Mozilla really should be in such a bin too.
by throwinothrside on 11/19/24, 10:55 AM
I have a feeling this will get worse. I can think of these companies which have the resources to take over Chrome - Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and Facebook.
I can't see anybody else. They are all monopolies and is gonna screw it up big time for us consumers.
by worldmerge on 11/18/24, 11:06 PM
So what would happen to Chromebooks?
by sandGorgon on 11/19/24, 7:59 AM
I dont think anyone has pointed this out - Apple and Google have long fought against improvements in mobile browsers. Specifically because they threaten the app store monopoly.
Push notifications in PWA was one of the big big ones. Apple blocked it for years and years.
by okdood64 on 11/18/24, 10:53 PM
So who would set the price in this? If Google just sets something moderately absurd then what?
by m3kw9 on 11/24/24, 3:16 AM
Another advantage. Chrome also have 65% market share according to google search, and they get to default the search to Google.com.
by cmrdporcupine on 11/19/24, 1:16 PM
splitting Chrome and Android off from Google will do little to kneecap Google's monopoly power, and will just cause those two projects to fail, with no revenue source. There's no way to make money from Chrome that wouldn't just _suck_ for consumers.
google's monopoly powers come from its ads business, and the data collection network that comes with search and other facilities.
Split crawling/indexing (for search), search itself, and search ads/display ads out into separate businesses. Search has to pay for the index, and others could buy access into the same index. Ads has to pay search for data. etc etc.
Then you'll see some changes.
by deadlast2 on 11/23/24, 4:51 PM
Why does Apple get to get it app store and its browser and its phones and OS etc. What about Microsoft with its OS's and apps.
by gcau on 11/18/24, 11:42 PM
My understanding is that google lets anyone freely use chromium, and chrome is just their flavour of chromium with google services integrated ontop of it. Microsoft took chromium and sprinkled ai-enhanced microsoft flavours on top to make edge, which doesn't look like a monopoly. Presumably, microsoft is able to use windows to push edge, and use edge to push bing. If chrome was sold and had the google integration removed I would switch to a vanilla chromium.
I see some argument for google paying firefox to be the default search engine, but is that worse than firefox not existing at all?
In terms of search engines, I think there's just a lack of good competition. The search engines I'm aware of are:
Google: Just works. The only problem is you need to add "reddit" to most searches to get actual real, human-written non-seospam text, but I doubt that's unique to just google.
Bing: I'm greeted with an uncomfortably flashy layout shift, a page full of american news and some popup about AI. They also cover up and censor for the CCP.
Kagi: Their website is literally broken right now and I can't even see the pricing or other pages. I tried safari, chrome, firefox and edge, the hamburger menu doesn't open. Ultimately though, nobody except the kind of audience on HN is going to pay for it. If I told anyone else about a search engine that costs $16/month to use, I'm sure they'd think i'm joking, irregardless of how good it may be.
Yandex: Good for the reverse image searching, but otherwise probably not good to use.
Most of this article is ads, and it's paywalled so I can only read the first couple sentences, so if this is addressed in it I apologise.
by rldjbpin on 11/20/24, 10:28 AM
albeit n=1 sample size, but looking at firefox should give enough indication to what would become of chrome if it gets detached from google.
it is wishful thinking to assume that maintaining a dominant browser can be done if not through subsidizing through other means. as time has shown repeatedly that nobody wants to pay for this directly, it seems like any new ownership would resort to things that would ultimately ruin the browser for everyone.
maybe that is the goal all along, but it is hard to debate whether that is going to be a net positive.
by blackeyeblitzar on 11/19/24, 12:03 AM
Is this why Google is trying to deprecate Chrome OS and merge it into Android? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42175069
by diob on 11/19/24, 7:27 PM
Antitrust and antimonopoly would do so much for the economy over in the USA. We need smaller companies, and more of them. Leads to more innovation, better jobs / distributions of wealth.
by iandanforth on 11/18/24, 11:24 PM
They could spin it off and then set up the same kind of pay-for-default-search deal that Mozilla has. This might put just enough distance between the two orgs to satisfy the DOJ without actually changing much.
by mattmaroon on 11/19/24, 5:32 PM
Thats lovely but I think ultimately not going after the root problem. Going after the root problem would be pushing them to divorce the advertising business from the rest.
by dzink on 11/18/24, 11:54 PM
Chrome data may be feeding Search Results based on how long people stay at different pages and where they go. Thus removing Chrome may remove a substantial data advantage for search.
by moomin on 11/18/24, 11:13 PM
I have no idea how this would work either, but I feel like the election makes this more likely to happen, not less, after the amount of rhetoric that Google needs taking down a peg.
by CM30 on 11/19/24, 2:29 PM
Honestly, on a consumer/public interest level, this would be a great thing to see. Google would have to make sure their sites work well on all browsers, since they wouldn't maintain Chrome anymore (or have control over its functionality), Chrome wouldn't get an extra marketing, since Google wouldn't be able to market it to people using its products or services, and there would be far less of an incentive to do things like change addon APIs if it's not the parent company losing money from blocked ads.
The two big questions however are:
1. Who would buy it?
Because if it's someone like Microsoft, then we're back to square 1. It's another IE6/Chrome situation, with conflicting interests and unfair marketing efforts. Personally I can't see Apple, Meta or Microsoft buying Chrome though (or being allowed to under anti monopoly laws), so lord knows who'd end up with it. Mozilla or an open foundation of sorts would be the best option, but I somehow doubt it'll be those either
2. How is it going to be funded?
You ideally don't want the Firefox 'solution' where Google basically pays them to exist, but you can't really sell a browser either. So how it could be standalone and remain a viable venture is anyone's guess.
by cue_the_strings on 11/19/24, 9:08 AM
In this thread:
Chrome and Chrome-related employees of Google worrying about their future compensation under a smaller company.
Don't worry, I'm sure that Chrome / Chromium will be picked up by several big players together, Microsoft is involved via Edge, ... I don't see much changing.
I think that government should limit its interference in the market as much as possible, but Chrome is just so monopoly-oriented from the get go, it's no wonder it will deservedly get split off.
Also, look from the bright side, multiple large players have it in their interest to keep Chrome / Chromium alive, so it will survive the death of Google and it's main ads business.
by foxbee on 11/19/24, 9:50 AM
I believe they'll settle on splitting out Youtube - which I believe makes perfect sense and from a rev/valuation perspective, would be a top 20 company.
by TheMagicHorsey on 11/19/24, 5:33 PM
This seems unnecessary. Google's search business is being disrupted along different axes already ... LLMs, voice agents, Apple Intelligence, etc.
by iamleppert on 11/19/24, 5:00 PM
Hopefully BlackRock buys it and runs it into the ground.
by all_usernames on 11/20/24, 9:20 PM
Spoiler alert; Elon buys all your web browsers.
by BadHumans on 11/19/24, 12:44 AM
I can think of other ways to break up Google that don't involve selling Chrome. I'm not sure I understand how selling Chrome would weaken Google.
by skizm on 11/19/24, 3:25 PM
Could someone make a new company with the sole purpose of buying Chrome, then just sell Google back the same data they were already collecting?
by tssva on 11/19/24, 12:46 AM
Google as Microsoft did years ago will stall until a new administration is in office and reach a settlement for what is effectively a slap on the wrist.
by 4b11b4 on 11/18/24, 11:30 PM
This doesn't seem helpful... Yet, Microsoft owning Chrome feels better. They are less incentivized to bake in features related to advertising.
by ecmascript on 11/19/24, 7:55 AM
The ideal solution would be if they sell Chrome to a player like Shopify would buy it that actually makes money in a traditional sense.
by philwelch on 11/18/24, 11:09 PM
Is this really going to happen in the next 62 days?
by ssalka on 11/19/24, 6:55 PM
https://archive.ph/bBDQt
by LinuxBender on 11/19/24, 2:39 PM
Would Google be stopped from selling Chrome to a spin-off of a former Alphabet company?
by DimuP on 11/19/24, 12:36 AM
A single attempt to separate google and chrome (with all its products) would make the eco-system pointless and swipe away google entirely from the global market.
why not to give Youtube instead tho? (even if the revenue/monetization of every single channel would be heavily impacted)
Android and chrome are necessary for google to live, so Youtube or something else would be better
by Clubber on 11/19/24, 11:57 AM
This is an extremely weak remedy. They should force Google to sell YouTube and Android.
by lofaszvanitt on 11/19/24, 11:25 AM
Nope, browsers should be developed by countries, together, not by some faceless entity.
by DeathArrow on 11/19/24, 8:02 PM
They should split Chrome, search, ADS, Gmail, Youtube, Cloud and Android at least.
by erickf1 on 11/19/24, 2:38 PM
If it's not Google, it will be someone else that dominates the browser market.
by lakomen on 11/19/24, 11:15 AM
Ok good and who will then deliver the same or better vode quality, who could?
by yonisto on 11/19/24, 8:13 AM
Serious question: sell it to who? how the new owner will make money out of it?
by ingen0s on 11/19/24, 9:03 PM
Just open source it and call it a day - the world isn’t all about money
by openrisk on 11/19/24, 10:57 AM
If there is an auction for Chrome maybe the Onion could place a bid?
by pmdr on 11/19/24, 12:28 PM
Good, Google's browser monopoly is a threat to the open web.
by flkenosad on 11/19/24, 4:05 PM
At this point, I feel like Chrome is more valuable than Search.
by Sparkyte on 11/19/24, 9:13 AM
This is too complicated Chrome couldn't survive on its own without Google. Chrome is fundamentally a way for users to interface with their products. However it would be better to give regulation to Goolge about information handling.
by meindnoch on 11/19/24, 8:51 AM
Google needs to be punished for what they did to the web.
by AzzyHN on 11/20/24, 3:18 AM
Mozilla has a chance to do something really funny
by postalrat on 11/19/24, 10:26 PM
Lets hope Apple doesn't buy and Dark Sky it.
by mindslight on 11/18/24, 10:48 PM
Facepalm. So I guess this weak cookie cutter approach is what we get for the high water mark of opposition before the imminent corporate coup against constitutionally limited government.
Splitting the surveillance giants into different vertical markets makes no sense at all, and this particular division illustrates it well. We might have had a chance if government, two decades ago, had worked towards creating new specific types of regulations that reflected what competition in the digital realm actually requires - for example prohibiting this now widespread bundling of proprietary client software with hosted services, by mandating that hosted services must only be offered through published APIs. Instead we got some token opposition of "selling off" (checks notes) a web browser that's ultimately "open source".
by paxys on 11/19/24, 12:49 PM
How does one sell an open source project exactly?
by zombiwoof on 11/19/24, 7:58 PM
Elon and Trumo will buy it and rename it Gold
by mark_l_watson on 11/19/24, 3:00 AM
This is so stupid. I am a fan of the books Privacy is Power and The Tech Coup, both books do a great job arguing for privacy and mitigating the harm of tech giants.
What should be done is having strong privacy laws, requirements for encrypting user data, 100% transparency on how user data is sold (require all buyer and seller information to be public), prohibiting sale of user data in most cases, super fine control privacy and security settings.
Google already does a good job on some of these things, and they and other tech giants need to be fenced in by strong privacy and user rights laws.
Corporations are good at still making profits when they have to follow laws that are inconvenient to them.
If members of the US Congress were prohibited by law from stock trading, that might help clean up the logjams preventing better laws.
by md_rumpf on 11/19/24, 7:48 AM
perplexity's valuation just doubled!
by dbg31415 on 11/19/24, 8:40 AM
Maybe they are just totally incompetent.
by tylerchilds on 11/19/24, 3:44 PM
selling off chrome seems like a terrible idea for this simple reason
the new owner needs to recoup a
twenty billion dollar investment
by tway223 on 11/19/24, 8:20 PM
Who will be the buyer? ORCL or IBM?
by cryptozeus on 11/19/24, 5:40 PM
I think chrome can become independent company and provide search and usage apis to all the companies like google, msft, apple etc.
by sleepybrett on 11/18/24, 11:24 PM
you hate to see it.. no wait. love it.
by ryukoposting on 11/18/24, 11:34 PM
My bet is that this is just lame-duck flailing, and the case will be dropped by the incoming administration.
Alternatively, the Trump admin forces the issue, Google sells off Chrome, and Musk buys it.
by rnd0 on 11/19/24, 7:54 PM
How does this affect Chromium?
by lakomen on 11/19/24, 11:31 AM
State owned web browser might be a thing. If it's in the interest of many the state should pay for it. I know what you're thinking, "but that's communism". Well, you can't clench and fart, how they say. This of course adds new problems, like backdooring by 3 letter agencies, corruption, abuse by politicians who exclude certain countries by agenda etc
by sidd_sarkar on 11/24/24, 7:52 PM
Yolo
by yesbut on 11/18/24, 10:56 PM
This is just the corporate captured government pretending to do something significant as a performative act for an ignorant public.
The DOJ knows this is pointless. The DOJ knows where Google's profits come from.
The DOJ is pretending that thr public still thinks about the internet in terms of Microsoft/Internet Explorer bundling.
Shame on you DOJ for wasting everyone's time and money.
by ConcernedCoder on 11/19/24, 7:59 AM
The DOJ are apparently idiots that do not understand tech, let alone anti-trust or monopolies... for instance: I create a useful device that consumers love and use, I sell ads on the device to anyone who will pay, in fact I auction them to the highest bidder... DOJ: you are a monopoly and must sell the device... wtf?
by flanked-evergl on 11/19/24, 11:15 AM
The shakeup coming to the DOJ next year can't come soon enough.
by Havoc on 11/19/24, 9:46 AM
They all seem to have gotten rather cozy.
eg Just spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out why links in outlook open in edge even if browser is set to chrome. Microsoft chose to just ignore what browser you select (in their OS). It’s just so blatantly monopolistic behaviour
by lowbloodsugar on 11/19/24, 4:57 PM
No they won’t.
by tamade on 11/18/24, 11:55 PM
How likely will Trump DOJ drop this? Consumers have choice, albeit just a handful of credible options. Nobody is forced to use Chrome (unlike MSFT pushing IE back in the day)
by yapyap on 11/19/24, 11:43 AM
“Push google”
In what way
by dyauspitr on 11/18/24, 10:53 PM
Why? What a stupid move. It’s like actively working to drive our largest corporations into the ground so China can replace it with some bullshit.
by HL33tibCe7 on 11/18/24, 11:17 PM
This is terrible news for the web
by learningstud on 11/20/24, 9:32 AM
This is so stupid. When will we learn some common sense from Milton Friedman?
by daft_pink on 11/18/24, 11:13 PM
Are they going to request this only for Trump to unrequest this?
by rqtwteye on 11/19/24, 9:08 AM
I bet the Trump people will stop such an effort immediately
by Timber-6539 on 11/19/24, 11:12 AM
This farce we call capitalism works really well.
by lenerdenator on 11/19/24, 2:27 PM
Good.
I mean, it won't matter by mid-2025, but the thought is nice.
by zusammen on 11/19/24, 2:40 PM
One 675 MB tab at a time, please.
by mattatobin on 11/19/24, 2:33 PM
I'd like to remind you all.. You were the ones who abandoned Firefox and pushed Chrome and clones ruining Firefox and Mozilla as a whole by market dumbassery in the process.
NOW Microsoft is primed as they have defacto control of the windows chromium branch to go full force Internet Explorer with Edge .. i been seeing the features creep up toward that end. Re-interpretations of 25 year ideas that frankly would have been better then than now.
GOOD WORK TECHIES you just handed the web back to Microsoft. Guess that counts as part of .. some sort of great reset huh?
-Tobin, former Pale Moon Asshole
by wesselbindt on 11/19/24, 8:06 AM
I'm very surprised by the number of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that monopolies are _very_ bad for consumers.
by nojvek on 11/19/24, 1:23 AM
Trump DOJ is gonna be very friendly to PAC donations.
100% bet, Trump gonna be easy on corporations that kiss his butt.
by exabrial on 11/18/24, 10:49 PM
Chrome??? Dude. THAT plus:
* Android
* Search
* Advertising
* YouTube
Smash it into tiny pieces. Then the same for Apple and Facebook.
We've been stalled for technological progress for 15+ years. Tear down the giants holding us back.
by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on 11/18/24, 10:48 PM
Outstanding news!
by nzach on 11/19/24, 10:05 AM
If your goal is to reduce the influence Google has on the browser market is this really the best move? From a practical standpoint I find it hard to believe.
While I agree that monopolies era bad for consumers and that the position Chrome currently have is pretty much a monopoly I don't think this particular move would be good for consumers in the short and mid time-frame. Maybe in the long run this is the correct decision, but this will cause quite a lot of pain for quite a lot of time.
I think one of the ways this could backfire against the users is that removing Chrome from Google will create a 'power vacuum' in the web standards. Currently Chrome is this de facto standard, for better of for worse. Removing that can create a situation where we have a couple of competing standards.
In my opinion the problem with this kind of competition is that making browsers will become significantly harder, because now instead of just copying Chrome you will have to implement several standards. And this is why I expect the web experience to become significantly worse in the short term.
And you know what will happen when the web experience degrades? Every company will push their own app. And even more experiences/services will be locked behind an android/ios app with the excuse "we want to deliver a great experience to our users". And this is WAY worse for users than the monopoly Google has in the browser.
Maybe a better solution would be for the US government to create/adopt a web standard and create a rule that says "if you want to sell to the US government you need to be fully compliant with standard XYZ". This way you create a goal that everyone can work towards.
As far as I know this is how the government handle this situation in the medical sector, where they have HL7 to create the relevant standards. And I'm fully aware that this brings a lot of problems to the table. The first one is that definition of standards for the web will become a political topic, and this is never a good sign. However, I think this is really the only option if we want the web to be a place with fair competition.
by FergusArgyll on 11/19/24, 8:00 AM
Thank goodness the era of ridiculous anti-trust is coming to an end.
Every "normie" knows about edge, it comes with your new Windows. no one uses it, people know quality when they see it and everyone prefers chrome. If there was a better browser we'd use it.
The default should definitely be: Companies should be incentivized to create great products.
If the incentives include, get 90% market share, that's great! No one would put it the amount of work Google has if the incentives were small
by rvz on 11/18/24, 10:44 PM
That really does not come as a surprise and that was totally expected. [0] As soon as Chrome started to become more of a platform (for their extension API) with many other companies using it in their own browsers, it tells you why they had >90% of the search market for years.
This is what the folks at Google have all feared and why they started to run away from the company, spurring up 'Google' competitors (including Microsoft & OpenAI) all bringing it down.
Google will appeal and fight back and either way will survive. But we have given Sundar enough time to turn it around and it's time for him to leave and a wartime CEO to step up.
It's possible as Sataya Nadella did this for Microsoft. Google needs to do the same.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37116034