The U.S. Department of Justice is ramping up its case against Google’s alleged monopoly, suggesting the government could eventually force the company to sell its widely-used Chrome browser. The move is part of the DoJ’s push to challenge Google’s hold over the digital advertising and search engine markets.
The Justice Department’s latest legal action accuses Google of engaging in anticompetitive behavior by unfairly using its dominance in search and advertising to prop up its other services, most notably Chrome. The government argues that Google’s browser and vast data ecosystem have given the company an outsized advantage over competitors, stifling innovation and harming consumers. By bundling Chrome with its Android operating system, Google has built an extensive network that could limit consumer choice and make it difficult for smaller firms to compete.
Which tech company would buy Chrome from Google? I just can’t think of a single tech company that could be an improvement over Google owning Chrome.
Amazon
Apple
Meta
Microsoft
Oracle
What about media companies? I don’t see consumers benefiting from this.
Comcast
Disney
Netflix
Viacom
What about telecom? I still don’t see consumers benefiting from this.
AT&T
T-Mobile
Verizon
What about foreign companies? Will they be even allowed to buy Chrome? I’m not sure.
LG
Philips
Samsung
Sony
The more I think about it, this won’t end well.
Sell it to Canonical
Sell it to IBM so they can end all support lol
Of those companies, Apple seems like the best option due to their business goals (privacy). Though I am not fully sure why they’d want to as they already have a browser with a relative market share dominance and ecosystem.
Realistically, it would make sense to see Microsoft try again, it would instantly get 70% of the world to use “Edge”, so their goals are met. Chrome already has the modern web standards, so it might just mean slower progression of the web in the future.
Apples business isn’t privacy. Apples business is selling privacy.
I don’t disagree, it’s more of a matter of least evil.
Lol. Lmao, even.
Sorry for the flippant comment, but it’s so incredibly wrong that I need to highlight the ridiculousness. TBF to you, it’s a common misconception due to Apple marketing’s lies, and our regulatory agencies unable/unwilling to do anything about companies that lie like Apple does.
Microsoft would be even worse.
The best outcome IMO is to kill Chrome, Edge, AND Safari, and force users to scatter and find an alternative on their own. There will need to be some way to prevent all big tech from trying to compete here too (Facebook, Amazon, etc), as those are incentivized to monopolize exactly like Google did, and we shouldn’t have to wait another 2 decades for the government to do something about it.
There will be some growing pains as people initially end up on shitty/scammy browsers, but eventually the market will do its thing and browser devs will compete for marketshare.
Is Microsoft even eligible? Wasn’t their anti-trust suit over IE basically about this same thing?
Chromium is already there and companies like Microsoft have their own forks so… Yeah I think there’s no point of buying Chrome.
It’s the most popular web browser in the world. Direct access to the browser windows and browsing data of the majority of Internet users would be the point.
Stellantis