From the «alternatives may be worse» department:
Title: Oddly, in defense of Google keeping Chrome
Author: Thom Holwerda
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 22:16:17 +0000
Link:
https://www.osnews.com/story/142199/oddly-in-defense-of-google-keeping-chrome/
As much as I’m a fan of breaking up Google, I’m not entirely sure carving Chrome out of Google without a further plan for what happens to the browser is a great idea. I mean, Google is bad, but things could be so, so much worse.
OpenAI would be interested in buying Google’s Chrome if antitrust enforcers are successful in forcing the Alphabet unit to sell the popular web browser
as part of a bid to restore competition in search, an OpenAI executive testified on Tuesday at Google’s antitrust trial in Washington.
↫ Jody Godoy at Reuters[1]
OpenAI is not the only “AI” vulture circling the skies.
Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko said he didn’t want to testify in a trial about how to resolve Google’s search monopoly because he feared retribution from Google. But after being subpoenaed to appear in
court, he seized the moment to pitch a business opportunity for his AI
company: buying Chrome.
↫ Lauren Feiner at the Verge[2]
Or, you know, what about, I don’t know, fucking Yahoo!?
Legacy search brand Yahoo has been working on its own web browser prototype, and says it would like to buy Google’s Chrome if the company is forced by a court to sell it.
↫ Lauren Feiner at the Verge[3]
If the courts really want Google to divest Chrome, the least-worst position it could possibly end up is in some sort of open source foundation or similar legal construction, where no one company has total control over the world’s most popular browser. Of course, such a construction isn’t exactly ideal either
– it will become a battleground of corporate interests soaked with the blood of
ordinary users – but anything, anything is better than cud peddlers like OpenAI
or whatever the hell Yahoo! even is these days.
As users, we really should not want Google to be forced to divest Chrome at this point in time. No matter the outcome, users are going to be screwed even harder than if it were to stay with Google. I hate to say this, but I don’t see
an option that’s better than having Chrome remain part of Google.
The big problem here is that there is no coherent strategy to deal with the big technology companies in the United States. We’re looking at individual lawsuits
where judges and medieval nonsense like juries try to deal with individual companies, which, even if, say, Google gets broken up, would do nothing but strengthen the other big technology companies. If, I don’t know, Android suddenly had to make it on its own as a company, it’s not users who would benefit, but Apple. Is that the goal of antitrust?
What you really need to deal with the inordinate power of the big technology companies is legislation that deals with the sector as a whole, instead of letting random courts and people forced to do jury duty decide what to do with Google or Amazon or whatever. The European Union is doing this to great success so far, getting all the major players to make sweeping changes to the benefit of users in the EU. If the United States is serious about dealing with the abusive behaviour of the big technology companies, it’s going to need to draft
and pass legislation similar to the European Union’s DMA and DSA.
Of course, that’s not going to happen. The United States Congress is broken beyond repair, the US president and his gaggle of incompetents are too busy destroying the US economy and infecting children with measles, and the big tech companies themselves are just bribing US politicians in broad daylight. The odds of the US being able to draft and pass effective big tech antitrust regulations is lower than zero.
OpenAI Chrome. You feeling better yet about the open web?
Links:
[1]:
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/google-contemplated-exclusive-gemini-ai-deals-with-android-makers-2025-04-22/ (link)
[2]:
https://www.theverge.com/policy/654835/perplexity-google-antitrust-trial-remedies-chrome (link)
[3]:
https://www.theverge.com/policy/655975/yahoo-search-web-browser-prototype-google-trial-antitrust-chrome (link)
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