Google May Be Forced to Sell Chrome

Tsing

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The U.S. Department of Justice is planning to sue Google very soon for (allegedly) abusing its control over the search market. While antitrust suit preparations are still ongoing, state prosecutors are already mulling what parts of the company they’d like to break up if the courts rule in their favor, and according to a report from Politico, one of the biggest candidates is the Chrome browser.



With a market share of over 66 percent, Chrome seems like an obvious target for the Feds, but the DOJ and state attorneys general have reportedly been urged by numerous third parties (e.g., advertising technology experts, industry rivals, and media publishers) to single out the world’s most popular browser...
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Why can't they just spin chrome off to another alphabet subsidiary?
 
Since Edge is now Chrome based.... how will that work
 
Oops.
This is the old thinking of antitrust though right?
Doesn't get anymore cheaper than free does it?
 
Uvilla said:
Oops.
This is the old thinking of antitrust though right?
Doesn't get anymore cheaper than free does it?
Click to expand...

It's interesting that becoming a market leader with a search engine publishing their own browser that is minimalist to the extreme while gathering copious amounts of Metadata about the user that they use to target adds and better serve search results equals anti trust.

I don't understand how getting to the front of the market and sharing your platform rather openly is anti trust.

I look forward to someone with a better legal mind digesting this information.
 
Grimlakin said:
It's interesting that becoming a market leader with a search engine publishing their own browser that is minimalist to the extreme while gathering copious amounts of Metadata about the user that they use to target adds and better serve search results equals anti trust.

I don't understand how getting to the front of the market and sharing your platform rather openly is anti trust.

I look forward to someone with a better legal mind digesting this information.
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I agree, to the extent that this is how we been doing antitrust measures for the last 40 years or more.

Now if you want to talk about antitrust, and busting big companies for the main or sole reason being we as a people argue there is not enough players in a market and it should be more, then okay, but that is changing the rules in the middle of the game, and only for specific players ( Google).
Stinks to high heaven to me.
No I don't love Google, and yes I do agree that markets sometimes should be fed the blood of large companies, but this should be done with proper reforms passed, and after that give the areas of concern in markets we as a people think should be rectified a notification and a chance to adhere or spin off or whatever.
This... Just seems weird.
 
Obviously we need a Government approved browser solution.
 
Meh,

I don't really care about this. I would prefer it if they just banned the tracking and collection of data of users.

Sure, this would be a big hit to the big internet companies, but they can survive on a more contextual advertising model.

Hoarding information about people is just too high of a risk, and must be stopped.
 
Burticus said:
How is anything that is given away for free, a monopoly? I mean at least IE came with the OS, which someone paid money for somewhere along the supply chain.
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You are paying for it, you just don't realize it. All your data that's collected and advertisements, etc. You are the payout. It's "free" but they are making money from it. If they were a non profit and weren't raking in billions, maybe I'd accept your argument. I do agree though, it does make the argument more difficult when there is no exact value to put on it (Aka, how much more money do they make per person because of chrome).
 
Uvilla said:
Oops.
This is the old thinking of antitrust though right?
Doesn't get anymore cheaper than free does it?
Click to expand...
Antitrust is not about MSRP. It's about having too much control. Eg: The same company controlling the browser market, that owns the search engine market. And by controlling the browser market they can use it to funnel consumers to their search engine without actual free market competition. As in the market of search engines is no longer free if google uses it's browser penetration to further consolidate their search engine.

And that is why I think the so called "free market" is an utopia, it never works, it's not something we should strive for. The more free the market, the more ripe it is for consolidation of power, and the eradication of competition.
 
Zarathustra said:
Sure, this would be a big hit to the big internet companies, but they can survive on a more contextual advertising model.
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Small media company owner checking in here. The way it stands now, the individually targeted ads allow us to continue as a going concern. "Contextual" ads pay pennies on the dollar in comparison.
 
So let's say Google is forced to put Chrome on the open market. What valuation do they put on it to sell it? 100 billion? 200 billion? Where is the market value for it and separating it from Google infrastructure and environment?
 
David_Schroth said:
Small media company owner checking in here. The way it stands now, the individually targeted ads allow us to continue as a going concern. "Contextual" ads pay pennies on the dollar in comparison.
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I understand that they pay less, but there is a bit of a supply and demand thing going on here.

Remember, back in the print days, completely untargeted newspaper ads paid more than any of the online ads do today (which is why the newspaper industry has been in so much trouble)

If targeted ads based on tracking were to suddenly go away, contextual ads would be the best choice on the block, and would be in higher demand, and thus would also cost/pay more. Remember, the likes of HardOCP, Anandtech and Toms Hardware were able to do just fine in the era before unchecked corporate surveillance.

In the end, they might not pay quite as much as the ultra targeted spy-ads, and I feel for the small media organizations, but not enough that I think it is a good idea to keep invasive spying for the sake of targeted ads.

Big Brother must end, by any means necessary, even if that involves the pitchforks.
 
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