this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Note: Original report by Bloomberg, article by Reuters proxied by Neuters to bypass paywall.

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[–] [email protected] 137 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Lit. It's a good ask although it's not clear what separation means here. Not going to hold my breath, the big corpos seem to usually win these kind of games.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Chrome is now owned by a company, owned by a company, owned by another company, that is owned by Google.

[–] [email protected] 72 points 1 month ago (4 children)

And even in the case where there is actual separation, and competition, it will only be temporary!

see history of telco consolidation after a monopoly breakup in 1984

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Chrome is now owned by a separate conpany with the same major stock holders.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago

It's like they're a company pretending to be another company, disguised as another company. Tropic Thunder all the way down.

[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Google will bribe trump and this'll be undone immediately

[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Google is such a good company, one the best. Everybody says it. I was just talking to John Google the other day, and he tells me, no really he did, he tells me we're going to do amazing things together. Oogles of googles. That's what we'll sell. Everybody will know about google by this time next year. It's true.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

God damnit.

[–] ayyy 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

You forgot the unrelated rant in the middle about toasters being too dark these days or some shit.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

He also didn't say his name three times in 10 seconds. Then sort of fade off and vaguely look off into the distance.

They said to me Donald, Donald, they said Donald, they do amazing things, real bigly things, my father, my father, said to me Donald, they do big things Google land. Really good things.......... Yeah.......... Big things...........................

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

That would be the logical thing according to common sense and probably according to pichai a few weeks ago, but trump just nominated an anti big tech and musk friend to the FCC. musk is behind almost everybody in ai and autonomous cars so he'll definitely push to hamper all competitors.

Sure, we don't know how far would they go or how long will musk keep having white house influence and I personally think breaking up google is now off the table, but I don't think they will get off the hook too easily.

So surely a very big bribe.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 month ago (9 children)

This seems like a sensible consumer protection to not let the ad company control the biggest web browser. I won't hold my breath, but I'm glad they are trying something.

AWS should also be split from Amazon.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (2 children)

If you're talking about edge browser, edge is chrome.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 month ago (4 children)

If this happens, I'd be interested in seeing how this effects ChromeOS. I don't use it but my mom does.

Also, if you're confused as to why ChromeOS would be effected, while it's based on Gentoo Linux, ChromeOS uses a modified version of Chrome as it's Desktop Environment.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Yes I would like to know what that means for ChromeOS and Chromebooks. If the new "Chrome" company got ChromeOS also that would be huge. But if that is not a requirement Google could just put another Chromium browser in ChromeOS. They could also continue to sell Chromebooks but based on a ChromiumOS fork.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 month ago

They can just wait it out until it becomes the corpo-friendly Dept. of Injustice on Jan. 20th.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Better hurry, Trump's rubber stamp DOJ will kill this faster than a cop encountering a dog.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I‘ve actually when something like this will happen. A few years ago German energy providers and distributors needed to split, because it gives you an unfair advantage if you own both. Whole companies were split in two. People working for years together would no longer work together. In the end consumer were much better off after the split. I feel the same way with internet browser. It is unfair if you own the infrastructure (Chrome, energy grid) and the services that run on it (YouTube, power plants).

[–] the_crotch 18 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The US did this to AT&T. It was broken up into dozens of "baby bells". Then it gradually bought them all back up and now it's as big as it ever was

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Bell telephone. AT&T was one of the resulting companies.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thats stupid of the US to not block the merges again then.. :p

[–] the_crotch 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well this process also spawned Verizon, so they do have legitimate competition now and that's what matters to antitrust actions

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

And whoever buys it won't also have some kind of ulterior motive? Chrome isn't likely to be a money-maker on its own. If it were, Firefox would have less trouble staying afloat. Anyone who buys Chrome most likely will have plans for it that are no more in the end-user's best interest than Google's.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not about dispelling any ulterior motive. The idea of anti-monopoly enforcement actions is that if the "business ecosystem" is good and healthy, then other companies who don't own Chrome will be able to compete with whoever owns Chrome, giving the consumer choice that people who like the free market say will reduce consumer exploitation. (If you can't tell from my tone, I am dubious, at best, of this logic)

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (12 children)

Google: Sure, we'll sell it to anyone who pays off our Russian Govt fine.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

LoL they won't, even if they buy it for 1 trillion dollar

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

What's to stop them just making another browser?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

With blackjack and hookers?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (8 children)

What’s to stop them just making another browser?

Nothing. Chromium is open source. So they could just fork it and declare a new "official" google browser and it would be a lot like Chrome.

I'm not sure why the govt thinks forcing google to give up a particular fork/branch of an open source browser is all that meaningful. It might make more sense if Chrome was a closed source one of a kind browser.

[–] ayyy 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’ve worked in the aftermath of DoJ agreements like this one. The DoJ is not stupid (or at least didn’t used to be) and will have stipulations about removing Google employees from governance/write permissions to the project, with follow up check-ins every few months to make sure any shenanigans aren’t occurring.

..none of that matters though now that the DoJ is going to be dissolved.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not needed. Internet Explorer existed for years after the 90s. It wasn't killed by the courts. It was killed by the fact that it's only function was to install a better browser on first boot.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think you are severely underestimating how many people don’t even understand the difference between windows, explorer, a web browser and even the Internet itself during the 90’s well into the 2000’s even 2010’s.

That’s who kept IE alive

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

It will never happen. But it would be a good thing for the openness of the web. More Firefox, less Chrome.

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