this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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Note: Original report by Bloomberg, article by Reuters proxied by Neuters to bypass paywall.

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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago

They can just wait it out until it becomes the corpo-friendly Dept. of Injustice on Jan. 20th.

[–] Moah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 23 hours ago

They shutting force then to stop the advertising branch too

[–] julianwgs@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I‘ve actually when something like this will happen. A few years ago German energy providers and distributors needed to split, because it gives you an unfair advantage if you own both. Whole companies were split in two. People working for years together would no longer work together. In the end consumer were much better off after the split. I feel the same way with internet browser. It is unfair if you own the infrastructure (Chrome, energy grid) and the services that run on it (YouTube, power plants).

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The US did this to AT&T. It was broken up into dozens of "baby bells". Then it gradually bought them all back up and now it's as big as it ever was

[–] Inucune@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Bell telephone. AT&T was one of the resulting companies.

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thats stupid of the US to not block the merges again then.. :p

[–] the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well this process also spawned Verizon, so they do have legitimate competition now and that's what matters to antitrust actions

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Very true, but in due time verizon could also be bought. Hence fcc should technically block it, like the nvidia and arm merge.
Or microsoft and activision ( which was heavily contested ).
Both were heavily contested worldwide

[–] normalexit@lemmy.world 68 points 2 days ago (8 children)

This seems like a sensible consumer protection to not let the ad company control the biggest web browser. I won't hold my breath, but I'm glad they are trying something.

AWS should also be split from Amazon.

[–] Zetta@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

AWS is amazing's money maker, they might as well just sell Amazon and keep AWS lol

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[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Better hurry, Trump's rubber stamp DOJ will kill this faster than a cop encountering a dog.

[–] capital@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

For the right price.

[–] barkingspiders@infosec.pub 137 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Lit. It's a good ask although it's not clear what separation means here. Not going to hold my breath, the big corpos seem to usually win these kind of games.

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 75 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Chrome is now owned by a company, owned by a company, owned by another company, that is owned by Google.

[–] WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 72 points 2 days ago (4 children)

And even in the case where there is actual separation, and competition, it will only be temporary!

see history of telco consolidation after a monopoly breakup in 1984

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[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 64 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Chrome is now owned by a separate conpany with the same major stock holders.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 41 points 2 days ago

It's like they're a company pretending to be another company, disguised as another company. Tropic Thunder all the way down.

[–] Rogue@feddit.uk 100 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Google will bribe trump and this'll be undone immediately

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 94 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Google is such a good company, one the best. Everybody says it. I was just talking to John Google the other day, and he tells me, no really he did, he tells me we're going to do amazing things together. Oogles of googles. That's what we'll sell. Everybody will know about google by this time next year. It's true.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

You forgot the unrelated rant in the middle about toasters being too dark these days or some shit.

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[–] errer@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

God damnit.

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[–] 0xb@lemm.ee 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That would be the logical thing according to common sense and probably according to pichai a few weeks ago, but trump just nominated an anti big tech and musk friend to the FCC. musk is behind almost everybody in ai and autonomous cars so he'll definitely push to hamper all competitors.

Sure, we don't know how far would they go or how long will musk keep having white house influence and I personally think breaking up google is now off the table, but I don't think they will get off the hook too easily.

So surely a very big bribe.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And whoever buys it won't also have some kind of ulterior motive? Chrome isn't likely to be a money-maker on its own. If it were, Firefox would have less trouble staying afloat. Anyone who buys Chrome most likely will have plans for it that are no more in the end-user's best interest than Google's.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's not about dispelling any ulterior motive. The idea of anti-monopoly enforcement actions is that if the "business ecosystem" is good and healthy, then other companies who don't own Chrome will be able to compete with whoever owns Chrome, giving the consumer choice that people who like the free market say will reduce consumer exploitation. (If you can't tell from my tone, I am dubious, at best, of this logic)

[–] SquatDingloid@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Yeah any company controlled by the rich will act immorally

We can at least make sure it's multiple companies who will fight each other instead of one supreme leader megacorp

[–] vortexal@sopuli.xyz 40 points 2 days ago (4 children)

If this happens, I'd be interested in seeing how this effects ChromeOS. I don't use it but my mom does.

Also, if you're confused as to why ChromeOS would be effected, while it's based on Gentoo Linux, ChromeOS uses a modified version of Chrome as it's Desktop Environment.

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[–] very_well_lost@lemmy.world 53 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] Twitches@lemm.ee 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)

If you're talking about edge browser, edge is chrome.

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[–] ulterno@programming.dev 14 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Google: Sure, we'll sell it to anyone who pays off our Russian Govt fine.

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[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

How do you force someone to sell something thats open source?

Can the government please force me to sell my open source software too? If they could be my sales department, I'd love that. Pretty please.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

I don't see how a "Chrome" company would make any money. Now if the Chrome Company also owned ChromeOS and Chromebooks that might be interesting. But it could also be bad, because such a company would probably want to take a cut of every Chromebook in order to actually make money.

[–] ccdfa@lemm.ee 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Chromium is open source, Google bases their Chrome off of it, but Chrome is not open source.

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[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It will never happen. But it would be a good thing for the openness of the web. More Firefox, less Chrome.

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