U.S. DoJ could force Google to sell Chrome
The United States Department of Justice may force Google to sell Chrome. The news comes a few months after the company was found guilty of maintaining an illegal search monopoly.
Well, this is not completely unexpected, I had mentioned this in my previous coverage of the antitrust lawsuit.
Google may be forced to sell Chrome to comply with antitrust laws
A report by Bloomberg (paywalled article) outlines the proposals that the DoJ will be recommending to federal judge, Amit Mehta. He was the judge who had recently deemed Google of illegally monopolizing the search market. Google is preparing an appeal against the ruling, a two-week hearing has been set for April 2025, and the final ruling could be reached by August 2025. But things are about to get much worse for Google, as the tech giant could be forced to part ways with the browser it created 16 years ago, Chrome.
The antitrust agency and States who are suing Google, will also request the imposition of some changes related to the AI industry. Dozens of companies were consulted by Government attorneys as they prepared recommendations for a remedy to make the market more competitive.
The antitrust officials want Google to license the search results and data, and allow websites options to prevent their data from being used for Google's AI products, such as the AI-generated summaries that are being displayed at the top of search results.
The report also mentions that the DoJ thought about an option to force Google to sell off Android, but pulled back from this decision. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean Android is off the radar.
Android could be unbundled
Android users will be aware that the mobile operating system bundles several apps from Google, many people view these as bloatware. Antitrust officials are working on proposals to force Google to split Android from its other products like Search and the Google Play Store. Could this mean that Android phones may offer an experience similar to AOSP (Android Open Source Project) sans Google apps? One requirement that is proposed wants Google to share more information with advertisers, and give them additional control over where their ads appear.
Naturally, Google isn't happy about these proposals. Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said this "radical agenda goes beyond the legal issues in this case", and that it would "harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership.
On a side note, Google seems to be transforming Chrome OS into Android, which seems to indicate that things could be changing rapidly.
Chrome's dominance could come to an end
According to StatCounter, Chrome leads the market with a 66.65% share world-wide, with Apple Safari in second place at 18.09%, followed by Microsoft Edge at 5.26%, and Mozilla Firefox at 2.65%. Those are the global stats. Since the antitrust case is based in the United States, let's take a look at how the browser market in the U.S. is. Spoiler alert, it is not that different. Chrome is at the top with 57.38%, Apple Safari has a 29.31% share, Edge is at the third spot with 6.57%, Firefox is at the fourth place with 3.47%.
Safari's numbers are kind of impressive despite the browser being exclusive to macOS, iOS and iPadOS, but that could be because all browsers on iOS/iPadOS are Safari. But these stats clearly highlight the problem, Chrome dominates the browser market with no proper competitor. It is no wonder why Microsoft is desperately trying to get more users on Edge with ads and sneaky settings.
The future of Chrome?
Regardless of what Chrome's future is, Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera will likely remain unaffected by the proceedings of the antitrust case, simply because Chrome and Chromium are two different products. The Chromium open source project is too big to be abandoned, it will thrive.
Chrome's future is unpredictable at this stage. This isn't like Google just randomly axing a service, oh look Inbox is so popular, let's end it. No, there is a big difference between killing a product and selling it to a third party, Google will lose the trademarks and rights related to Chrome. Any company that acquires Chrome inherits the popularity, and the user base of the iconic browser, flaws and all. I wonder if the brains behind the operation, aka the developer teams behind Chrome browser, will be allowed to continue working at Google. The law can't force them out too, right? Unless that is part of the judgement, what could warrant that?
Let's say Chrome is sold off, all Google needs to do is reboot the system. It has all the necessary tools to create a new browser to compete with Chrome. It owns the Chromium open source project, the dev teams who have worked on the world's most popular browser, how hard is it going to be to start from scratch? All it needs to do to attract users is to create a new browser, and place a single ad about it on the most visited website in the world, Google.com. I doubt the DoJ will be able to block this.
What they could have a say over, are the search deals that Google has made with other companies. Google's agreement with Apple was the heart of the antitrust case, the former paid several billions to the latter to keep Google as the default search engine on Safari across iOS, iPadOS and macOS. This could come to an end as officials are working on a ban on such exclusive contracts, so Mozilla's deal with Google might suffer the same fate. It would be ironical if Google lost Chrome, and couldn't pay the new owner to be the default search engine in the browser. Ouch!
At its core, Google depends on advertisements, and this is where it will hurt the most. Its search engine is heavily dependent on Chrome. If users switch to alternative search engines, the ad business will take a big hit. How do most users run search queries on their phone? Either through the Google search widget on their phone, or Google Assistant, or manually via the default browser, which on many Android devices, is Google Chrome. You can argue that the same applies to search on iOS, with Google being the default in Safari.
Which company would Chrome be sold to? That is a very difficult question to answer, as any company big enough to buy it could also be putting itself in the line of sight of antitrust officials. I think it is fair to assume that the new owner will be one that does not have a search engine of their own. Otherwise, it's the same problem all over, right? Apple doesn't have a search engine, could it buy Chrome? On the other hand, Apple hates Bing to the point it rejected an opportunity to buy it, this may be a good time to launch its own search engine, that might be good PR for a Safari with Apple Intelligence Search. One expert mentioned that OpenAI could be a potential buyer as it could integrate ChatGPT in Chrome, which could boost its subscriptions as well as open it up for ads.
DoJ ruling: Google is banned from re-entering the browser market for five years.
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/Google-should-sell-chrome-and-more-recommends-US-DoJ
imho this is bad for cyber security because creating a secure and reliable browser an expensive effort. microsoft and opera used to have their own browser engines but now they’re based on chromium, is a proof of that.
the best solution is to forbid google stuff to be bundled into chrome (or android for that matter), and let users decide. in addition to addressing google’s monopolistic behavior, such a move will prove or disprove whether: 1) normies just accept the defaults; 2) google stuff are so good that users would go through hassles to use them. thus, throwing 2 problems with one keyboard.
DOJ is out of touch with reality on this one.
Who would you sell it to? Who would be acceptable buyers? Who would you trust to hold that?
And besides, the “meat” is in chromium and browsers are generally a expense, not a profit, so who really wants “just” Chrome, if not for dominant control. The ROI in itself is pretty much guaranteed to be nonexistant.
Rather obviously it is pretty much 100% certain to be barred from being sold to a foreign company. There is simply too much at stake. And some MAGA coming soon, making it screamingly impossible to leave that in foreign hands.
Similarly, while MS would really badly want it, it would just repeat the Explorer mess – going from one dominant behemoth to another that would have to be struck down as well for having too much power that way.
The proprosal is additionally weird because, by almost identical standard, apple would have to give up safari (or open up to competing browsers and see safari usage freefall drop).
And doing that does not fit well with the maga-thinking that is going on. Nevermind the maga voters, I mean of course the monied interest behind them, where it really means reagan style “de-reg” and making corps and the top 0.5% even richer at the expense of everyone else.
It feels a lot like a desperate last bark from the current administration. Some progress was made under Lisa Kahn, just this big change is coming that will make 1 step forward 2 steps back seem like the more likely outcome. Dark times ahead. The only way I see this even being considered by the incoming administration is to make google/alphabet squirm for them and put more money in their pockets.
Let me guess, Google spins up a company, “sell” Chrome to that company. Problem solved. lol
@Lizard said on November 19, 2024 at 3:54 pm
“isn’t MS doing the same though with Edge browser that has a monopoly on Windows? you cannot uninstall Edge, and the damn thing bothers you every 10 minutes to use it as a default or it will set itself as default browser the next time you update it. And it uses Bing as search engine…why the double standards?”
Because M$ is in bed with .gov and .mil and more. M$ is a convicted monopoly, but it didn’t have to sell/spin off Internet Explorer, did it? Was M$ ever “broken up” as they should have been?
M$ is laughing throughout all of this, hoping Google will be crushed. What did Ballmer claim he wanted to do to Google, after all? Just search.
Any real lasting competition to M$ where people go head to head just doesn’t last. I’m surprised Google actually lasted as long as it has.
With Google’s split, M$ may well be positioned to “Edge” itself into a monopoly again. Well, technically one can say they still enjoy a monopoly. After all, when you buy a new PC, what do they usually come preloaded with? You guessed it, M$ Windows. Of course! Why would you want anything else other than garbage from a convicted monopoly?
M$ should have to answer for their crimes which continue all around the world.
Chrome is spyware in a box, so I’m not worried if Google has to sell it. Breaking up that browser’s monopoly would certainly be nice, and if a crap company acquires it and runs it into the ground, users can look for other, better browsers and we would all be better off.
If Google is no longer in control of the Chromium code base, then who will run it? Brave lol?
Chromium is separate from Chrome, so it won’t be affected by the court case.
This needs to be done to Google, Apple and Microsoft. They all need to broken up.
US DoJ’s life goals in 3 months:
“DoJ could force Microsoft to sell Windows
by Ashwin on Jan 19, 2024 in Microsoft
The United States Department of Justice may force Microsoft to sell Windows. The news comes a few months after the company was found guilty of maintaining an illegal OEM operating system monopoly.
At its core, Windows depends on OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to entice its users to adopt Microsoft Windows.
The operating system comes preinstalled with millions of newly manufactured computer hardware every year.
Microsoft has specifically been found to be requiring that OEMs either only offer Windows, a different operating system, or no operating system at all with their computing products.
This is therefore barring the choice of multiple operating systems for OEMs who cannot offer customers to choose between Windows or various Linux distributions.”
Many at DoJ will soon become filthy rich, and Google will continue doing what they’ve always done.
Everything changes and nothing changes.
This is a copium article. False hope, snake oil. Don’t be naive.
isn’t MS doing the same though with Edge browser that has a monopoly on Windows? you cannot uninstall Edge, and the damn thing bothers you every 10 minutes to use it as a default or it will set itself as default browser the next time you update it. And it uses Bing as search engine…why the double standards?
70% market share (and probably > 90% outside of the Apple ecosystem) vs 5% market share
You only can be prosecuted for abuse of monopoly power if you have a quasi monopoly, which means a sufficiently large enough market share. MS with Edge and its 5% is just not sufficient enough. 5% is not a monopoly, doesn’t matter how you look at it.
Windows on the other hand is a different thing. Abusing the windows market share by trying to trick users into using Edge, that could indeed be feasible. Especially because MS would be a repeat offender. But that’s an abuse of an OS monopoly, not a browser monopoly.
Idle threats considering the browser only makes money for Google. No different the Safari for Apple, or Edge for Microsoft. Just look at Firefox as one example with no ecosystem other than a big search deal with Google. Just because a browser is popular should not make it a target. Not only would it affect Google, but also all the other browsers built off of Chromium.
Not a chance this will happen. Just like with breaking up Microsoft, the decision is timed right before a new administration takes over in the US, and they will probably cancel it.
Besides, Google can just take the open source Chromium codebase, freely available to anyone, fork it, name it NotChrome, and continue on their marry way.
Most people here don’t remember the days when there was only one option to have a dial tone and (rent) a phone in your home – take it or leave it.
“Breakup of the Bell System”
The monopoly position of the Bell System in the U.S. was ended on January 8, 1982. AT&T Corporation proposed by in a consent decree to relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided local telephone service in the United States.[1] AT&T would continue to be a provider of long-distance service, while the now-independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), nicknamed the “Baby Bells”, would provide local service, and would no longer be directly supplied with equipment from AT&T subsidiary Western Electric.
This divestiture was initiated in 1974 when the United States Department of Justice filed United States v. AT&T, an antitrust lawsuit against AT&T.[2] At the time, AT&T had substantial control over the United States’ communications infrastructure. Not only was it the sole telephone provider throughout most of the country, its subsidiary Western Electric produced much of its equipment. Relinquishing ownership of Western Electric was one of the Justice Department’s primary demands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System
ATT fate would have happened to Mac too if they were in position of M$ dominance with OS because unlike M$ they produce their hardware too.
Most people here are probably not American, either.