DOJ: Google must sell Chrome, Android could be next

In a <i>completely unrelated</i> story, the #1 post on HN at the moment is &quot;uBlock Origin is no longer available on the Chrome Store&quot; &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43322922">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43322922</a>&gt;

IMHO, the real issue with Google isn&#x27;t the control of the web browser, but the complete vertical integration of the ad space. Divest Google of its position as the ad broker (i.e., unwind its acquisition of DoubleClick), and prohibit any sort of privileged data flow from Google to ex-Google Ads, and you&#x27;d probably have a more viable solution than the poking DoJ is trying to do right now.

I think Google should just be split up into baby Google&#x27;s that each have to cooperate with each other. Like we did with Bell. Also we should do the same thing to Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. In fact I think we should do it again to AT&amp;T and also Comcast. This should probably be done every so often as maintenance.

This headline seems misleading; the way I&#x27;m reading this, it&#x27;s still just a request to the courts, who will make the final decision right?

But would these services even be financially viable as separate entities?<p>How does Chrome make income? Isn&#x27;t it basically developed at a loss, but it makes money for Google&#x27;s other business units?

Discussion (467 points, 2 days ago, 651 comments) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43299886">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=43299886</a>

Honest question: who are the potential realistic buyers of Chrome? OS vendors already have their own browsers and Chrome doesn&#x27;t directly make much (any?) money.

A point that is often overlooked in discussions of this, which seems huge: they would also be banned from buying search engine dominance (as in, the primary source of Mozilla&#x27;s revenue).<p>&quot;Similarly, Google would be prevented from pressuring its partners to use Google search or AI services over the competition.&quot;

Feel like splitting ad sales from search is the one meaningful structural change they could insist upon that would actually make a difference to Google&#x27;s monopoly position. Anything like this is really more window-dressing than anything.

I wonder who would buy &quot;Chromium with a Google skin.&quot; You&#x27;d get a massive user base, but what would you do with the product? The only thing that distinguishes it from other Chromium-based browsers is integration with Google account features, which doesn&#x27;t seem useful for a non-Google company.<p>Buying Chromium is a more interesting proposition, but you can&#x27;t really &quot;buy&quot; it (aside from the trademark, infrastructure, domains) because the codebase isn&#x27;t Google&#x27;s to sell. Would the web coalesce around the new owners just because they inherit the CI and the repo?

Personally, I’m increasingly looking into native app development; maybe starting with iOS.<p>It’s good to have a diversified portfolio of skills, and if Chrome should be sold and not sustainable, there is the possibility that the rollout of new features to the web will feel like an Internet Explorer era malaise. The web may very well become a mostly frozen platform; warts and all.<p>I’m also not interested in following the inevitable JavaScript framework attempts to overcome this. At least this time, we have Web Components, WASM, and Canvas, making polyfilling almost anything theoretically possible.

The article mentions &quot;Trump&#x27;s DOJ&quot; but in actuality the DOJ has been building a case against Google since at least 2021 [0].<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;atr&#x2F;case&#x2F;us-and-plaintiff-states-v-google-llc-2023" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.justice.gov&#x2F;atr&#x2F;case&#x2F;us-and-plaintiff-states-v-g...</a>

Here is a question for everybody.<p>How would you feel if Google shut down Chrome, and created an app called the Google Application Platform. (GAP). The GAP would be the only place you could use Search, Workspace, YouTube, Maps, and every other google website.<p>What would you think if Google just abandoned the open web entirely.

Man, I hope they break out Google Business apps.<p>The artificial price point for GMail, GDocs, GMeet has killed so much competition.<p>Try pricing something against this insane dumping price Google sets - there is no TAM, the M does not payback enough to justify the effort.<p>The cross-financing with Ads would finally stop and fair pricing would come.

When Chrome launched, Google was still in their &quot;if it&#x27;s good for the open web, it&#x27;s good for Google&quot; phase.<p>Now, with Google as the entrenched incumbent in so many different spaces, what&#x27;s good for the web is not necessarily good for Google anymore.

My guess is this may go to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, Linux Foundation, or other industry consortium, since Chromium is already an industry standard and that structure would enable Google et al to continue to directly employ the developer teams currently working on it.

How about we raise some money and buy Chrome for the users? First order of business will be removing all privacy invading &quot;features&quot; and re-enabling Manifest V2. If somehow we&#x27;ll have some cash left, we might even contract Igalia to build blocker right into browser.

Everyone uses Chrome basically for crypto extensions anecdotally. They did a good job there.<p>All developers I know build pretty much exclusively on Chrome desktop wise.

I have no idea how a for-profit company can exist that solely produces a browser.<p>There&#x27;s only one model that can work long-term here: collective ownership. The closest model is probably the Wikimedia Foundation. Firefox and the Mozilla Foundation are here, obviously, but they&#x27;ve tried to act like a corporation with rising costs and lower earnings going over years. The money Google pays them is basically poison.<p>Linux has survived and thrived with something analagous to this but it&#x27;s also dependent to an unsettling degree on one person (Linus Torvalds). I realize his power has decentralized over the years (intentionally, by Linus) but there&#x27;s still the constnat risk of a schism.<p>Google and Chrome is just one small part of the problem. Apple&#x27;s Safari monopoly on iOS is also a problem. Browsers really need to be a common good.<p>I suspect none of this will happen. Even though these efforts began in the Biden administration, I suspect this will now become a shakedown. This administration will look to Google to fall in line and kiss the ring. That is now the cost of doing business.

This is so dumb.<p>Look, I hate how dominant Chrome is. It’s basically a glorified data vacuum for Google—and it’s only getting worse. But at the end of the day, people choose to use Chrome, and I don’t see why Google shouldn’t be allowed to own and develop it. There are still plenty of other browsers people can switch to.<p>Now, what’s actually dangerous is the growing trend of sites blocking non-Google search engines from indexing their content. That’s a real issue—and it’s escalating fast. Selling Chrome won’t do a damn thing to fix that.<p>Besides, no other company has the budget or incentive to maintain Chrome at the level Google does. If they’re forced to give it up, then what? A half-baked, underfunded mess? A fragmented ecosystem? None of this feels like a win.<p>... unless your goal is to have Elon be able to pick up a new browser to go along with Twitter and TickTock.

It would make more sense that Google be forced to sell Google Play + Services, not Android.

Can we go back to buying software? This free software subsidized by big ad money has fucked the whole market up.

The end result of this will be that Microsoft gets the Chrome team. I don’t know what the DOJ is thinking.

This could be actually one of good decisions here...

Let&#x27;s wait how long it takes for Trump&#x27;s crypto &#x2F; meme coin to get a spike and this DOJ thing to go away. After all, all is transactional with Trump.

Honestly I don&#x27;t care if Google gets broken up, so long as Apple is first.<p>People complain about whataboutism, but the Apple versus almost any other &#x27;monopoly&#x27; is insane. You can switch browsers within the next 30s, you can&#x27;t install an app from a third party vendor ever on iOS. [1]<p>[1] Yes I know you can pay $100 a year, and then compile your own&#x2F;open source apps weekly and move them to your device. No this is not a reasonable solution.

Good! Next: Android, YouTube

Ah yes Internet Explorer all over again. boring.

I guess Elon Musk is working on a web browser and a bunch of put options were put on Google.<p>Let&#x27;s be real, this administration is just doing stock manipulations and looting the public purse while running a media circus to distract people.