Technology DOJ Keeps Recommendation to Take Chrome Away from Google

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Content source

https://www.thurrott.com/google/318259/doj-keeps-recommendation-to-take-chrome-away-from-google

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 38 U.S. states filed their final remedy recommendations in the US v. Google antitrust case on Friday, and it’s a mix of good and bad news for the monopolistic online giant. Mostly bad.

“We proved Google violated antitrust law in an epic federal trial,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said. “Now it’s time to solve the problem. Today’s proposed final remedies package holds Google accountable for its search monopoly and protects consumers by promoting competition.”

The proposed remedies include:

• Forcing Google to sell off its Chrome web browser and, if the company fails to comply with its legal requirements, to divest itself of Android as well.
• A ban on all search-related payments to distribution partners like Apple and Android device makers.
• Google should be denied “exclusive control of ill-gotten gains” by requiring it to share targeted portions of its search index, user, and advertising data with its competitors for a “limited period of time.”
• A requirement that the government review any “future financial interests” in competitors with online search or generative AI products and services “for a limited time” to ensure the company doesn’t “use the same monopolistic playbook with new technologies.”

DOJ Keeps Recommendation to Take Chrome Away from Google

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 38 U.S. states filed their final remedy recommendations in the US v. Google antitrust case on Friday.

www.thurrott.com

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Apple could be the biggest loser in the Google Chrome sell off case

The final remedies will be decided in April, and Google is now at risk of losing a product that holds over 66 percent of the browser market share worldwide. However, a Google Chrome sell-off could also wipe out $20 billion from Apple revenues.

Google currently serves as the default search engine on Apple's exclusive browser app, Safari, and it pays Apple a whopping $20 billion to secure that position. A potential divestment of Chrome from Google will end Google's presence in Safari as the default search engine.

Apple could be the biggest loser in the Google Chrome sell off case

As the DOJ is forcing Google to sell off the Chrome browser, Apple is also at risk of losing a lot of billions in revenue.

www.neowin.net

 

[oldschool]

Apple could be the biggest loser in the Google Chrome sell off case

Apple could be the biggest loser in the Google Chrome sell off case

As the DOJ is forcing Google to sell off the Chrome browser, Apple is also at risk of losing a lot of billions in revenue.

www.neowin.net

Along with Firefox, I suppose.

 

[Marko :)]

I hope the buyer of Chromium will decide to bring MV2 back.

 

[Sammo]

Microsoft will probably buy Chrome and force us to use Bing

 

[Victor M]

Whoever buys chrome will probably sell the telemetry back to Google.

 

[Zero Knowledge]

How will selling chrome mean Apple won't get paid? Google search is not Chrome last time I checked. Apple will still get paid no matter what.

 

[Arequire]

How will selling chrome mean Apple won't get paid? Google search is not Chrome last time I checked. Apple will still get paid no matter what.

The judge ruled that Google's deal with Apple to have Google set as the default search engine on Apple devices violates antitrust law. So in addition to selling/divesting Chrome, Google will potentially no longer be allowed to pay Apple, Mozilla or any other company to have its search engine set as default anymore.

 

[Zero Knowledge]

OK thank you for clearing that up. I assumed it was just Chrome.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Chrome general manager tells Judge that only Google can run Chrome

For those who might have missed the story, Google lost the DOJ lawsuit last year, and Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the tech giant had a monopoly in search. As a result, the DOJ is now pushing for a breakup by forcing Google to sell the Chrome browser to another company. While Chrome's future still looms in uncertainty, Parisa Tabriz, the General Manager of Google Chrome, has stepped in to defend Google's authority over Chrome.


Parisa Tabriz testified on Friday in Washington federal court, insisting on Chrome's deep integration and its "interdependencies" with the Google ecosystem. The head of Chrome added that Google is the only company that can "offer the level of features and functionality that its popular Chrome web browser has today."

"Chrome today represents 17 years of collaboration between the Chrome people," Tabriz said. "Trying to disentangle that is unprecedented." She added that some vital Chrome features, like safe browsing and notifying users about compromised passwords, rely on shared Google infrastructure, and it might not be possible to recreate it somewhere else.

So far, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Yahoo have expressed interest in buying Chrome in case Google is forced to sell it.

And from the comments:

OpenAI, Perplexity, and Yahoo.... JHC. Google seems like the good guy compared to that list. Imagine how much enshittification will happen with those other 3....

Chrome general manager tells Judge that only Google can run Chrome

The General Manager of Google Chrome testified in court and insisted on the company's unmatched ability to run the Chrome browser.

www.neowin.net

 

[Marko :)]

OpenAI, Perplexity, and Yahoo.... JHC. Google seems like the good guy compared to that list. Imagine how much enshittification will happen with those other 3....

Oh, that would be terrific. The more they f*ck up Chromium, the greater chances are other browser vendors will change the engines meaning more competition.

 

[oldschool]

The situation is similar to the really big financial outfits during the 2008 economic fiasco. Like Goldman-Sachs, Google is just too big to fail, and the idiots at DOJ have no clue about what they're proposing.

Parisa Tabriz testified on Friday in Washington federal court, insisting on Chrome's deep integration and its "interdependencies" with the Google ecosystem. The head of Chrome added that Google is the only company that can "offer the level of features and functionality that its popular Chrome web browser has today."

"Chrome today represents 17 years of collaboration between the Chrome people," Tabriz said. "Trying to disentangle that is unprecedented." She added that some vital Chrome features, like safe browsing and notifying users about compromised passwords, rely on shared Google infrastructure, and it might not be possible to recreate it somewhere else.

She may indeed be right about this ... because it won't be possible for these guys

... OpenAI, Perplexity, and Yahoo

... to create or maintain what Google has built. They'll just screw it up even more. I mean, Yahoo/Verizon? You have to be kidding.

Which will leave bloated Edge to try to dominate the market, and the browser ecosystem will be a chaotic mess of bloat and vulnerabilities.

 

[SeriousHoax]

Yeah, I think the Google general manager is right in saying that only Google can run Chrome. It's not just Chrome the browser, the Chromium project altogether. Selling Chrome is going to affect everyone, every browser, the whole web negatively. The whole world use Chromium the browser engine not just as browser but in many other forms as well like a dependency of some other projects/apps and many more.
Imagine selling iOS to Amazon and Android to Netflix. How f****d up would that be?
If Google need to be punished, then punish them in some other ways. I hope they clueless DOJ will change their mind.

 

[piquiteco]

Imagine selling iOS to Amazon and Android to Netflix. How f****d up would that be?

I totally agree with you, google invests and pays millions of dollars in rewards for discovering vulnerabilities in its products, Chrome literally carries the entire web on its back and other browsers depend on it. If it is sold the quality will not be the same, google may have its faults, but it also has its merits, if this happens we will be the ones who will suffer.

 

[Nightwalker]

It's hard to even begin to talk about how stupid this decision would be, it's almost like the Brazilian court, which frequently breaks down consumers/citizens under the premise of helping them.

Google is no saint, but frankly I would be happier with a monopoly of its own than in a "competitive" market made up of OpenAI, Perplexity and Yahoo.

It's no coincidence that there are only two mobile operating systems today (iOS and Android), with the exception of Apple and Google, the rest of the players have shown themselves to be too incompetent to deal with the complexity of a gigantic ecosystem.

The sale of Chrome would only bring harm to consumers and inevitably Android and the web would become much worse, which, not ironically, would reduce competition against iOS.

Bureaucrats doing what they do best I suppose.

 

[oldschool]

It's not just Chrome the browser, the Chromium project altogether. Selling Chrome is going to affect everyone, every browser, the whole web negatively. The whole world use Chromium the browser engine not just as browser but in many other forms as well like a dependency of some other projects/apps and many more.

This is the crux of the issue. Imagine no Project Zero, etc.

 

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Senior Mozilla exec explains how Firefox dies without Google and it's not just the money

If you have been reading Neowin or some other tech blog fairly regularly, you must be aware of the current Google vs DOJ situation.

As a refresher, the DOJ has been pushing Google to sell off Chrome and open its search index to competitors. Google has been paying the likes of Mozilla and Apple billions to maintain Google Search as the default search engine, and the DOJ has flagged this practice as anti-competitive.

While it sounds like a win for Google's rival, in the case of Mozilla, things are not looking too bright, at all. That is because an enormous portion of the funding that Mozilla is able to get comes from Google. Some say it is close to 80%, although Mozilla itself stated back in 2011 that the "specific terms of this commercial agreement are subject to traditional confidentiality requirements" and that it is "not at liberty to disclose them" with reports suggesting it was around $300 million.

If true, it must be a big chunk of change in 2025 as the firm is clearly very worried.

Following the recent testimonial by Mozilla's Chief Financial Officer, Eric Muhlheim, the firm published a blog post explaining how Google's funding, or the lack thereof, could make or break Firefox as well as its in-house engine.

Senior Mozilla exec explains how Firefox dies without Google and it's not just the money

Things do not look too good for Mozilla. The Firefox browser maker has explained how a lack of Google funding can kill it, and it's not just due to the money.

www.neowin.net

 

[Marko :)]

Let's be real for a moment. Mozilla had a decade, if not more to diversify their income and gain marketshare by improving their core product, Firefox. They simply refused to do so. They got themselves into this mess and it's their job now to get out of it. If you want to survive as a company, you can't rely on just one customer, you need to have more of them.

Mozilla has to get their sh*t together otherwise the company will go bankrupt.

 

[Nightwalker]

Let's be real for a moment. Mozilla had a decade, if not more to diversify their income and gain marketshare by improving their core product, Firefox. They simply refused to do so. They got themselves into this mess and it's their job now to get out of it. If you want to survive as a company, you can't rely on just one customer, you need to have more of them.

Mozilla has to get their sh*t together otherwise the company will go bankrupt.

I don't think Mozilla refused to diversify its sources of income; on the contrary, it tried through Pocket, VPN, Mozilla Monitor, some types of embedded ads, etc. The problem is that these services didn't get the expected return, even if they're not necessarily bad.

 

[Marko :)]

I don't think Mozilla refused to diversify its sources of income; on the contrary, it tried through Pocket, VPN, Mozilla Monitor, some types of embedded ads, etc. The problem is that these services didn't get the expected return, even if they're not necessarily bad.

Ever wondered why that happened?

There are two reasons:

1. Mozilla never advertises their new services anywhere, except in Firefox​

Take a look at Firefox marketshare. Currently, it's 2,55% globally. It's the forth web browser by marketshare. People can't use services if they don't know they exist. If they advertised more, more people would use them without doubt.​

​

2. All Mozilla's premium services are georestricted​

When they launched a VPN service, it was available in few countries. It stayed that way for a longer period of time. Even to this day, their VPN service isn't available worldwide, just in 57 countries. Moreover, out of this 57, in only 33 countries you can completely order service while in others there are some limits. Mozilla Monitor is available everywhere, but data deletion is only available in the US. Mozilla Relay? Free is available everywhere, but the Premium plan which actually brings Mozilla money is only available in the EU and few countries outside of EU.​

​

Do you see the problem? This is why I said "they simply refused to do so". How do you expect to get users and earn money through your premium services if they aren't available globally and you don't advertise them anywhere?