There are better ways to deal with Google’s dominance.
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This past summer, the US District Court announce Google is a monopoly. On Wednesday, the Justice Department filed a complaint. Proposed solution– This plan, which is the government’s or PFJ’s “proposed final judgment,” must be approved by the judge overseeing the case. But it outlines changes the government believes will be enough to loosen Google’s hold on the search market.
In particular, the DOJ has proposed that Google sell its Chrome web browser, which currently accounts for about two-thirds of the browser market. and abstain from that business for five years. The proposal may seem valid and effective, and removing Google from browsers makes the government look bold. The proposal appears to correct a cosmic mistake from more than two decades ago, when the DOJ tried (and failed) to get Microsoft to dismantle its Internet Explorer browser during a previous antitrust enforcement session. This time, government lawyers argue that pulling Chrome from Google’s gauntlet is necessary to prevent Google from setting the default search engine for the majority of Internet surfers. and drive those same people to other Google products as well (for the same reason PFJ will prevent Google from paying competitors like Apple for default search positions).
This is a mistake. Google’s control of Chrome has certainly benefited its market position and profits, but Chrome may still be a boon for Google even if it’s foreign. Why not force Google to revoke Chrome’s Google-promoted features and leave the browser as a burden rather than a tool for market domination?
in august I argued that declaring Google a monopoly might not matter. Because the company has won the search war. Efficiently searching the web using text typed in input fields was Google’s first and perhaps only innovation. Competitors such as DuckDuckGo, Bing, and others offered their own take on Googling, which became a general term for Web search People come back to Google because they want to. It’s not just because the company is strong-armed.
Google incentivizes competitors to maintain status quo; Mozilla’s Firefox browser offers foundation case study latest annual report It lists $510 million in royalty revenue in 2022, some of which comes from Google in the form of referral fees for Google searches. PFJ appears to ban these types of payments. And whatever revenue they generate for Mozilla if those things are off the table. Browser companies may allow users to choose their own default search service. But the results can look much the same in the end. Those who like and are familiar with Google may choose it again.
Google created the Chrome browser in part to guide web users through services like search (and the ads that show it), Gmail, Google Docs, and more. Of course, search is what matters most (Chrome is the The first mainstream browser to integrate web search functionality directly into the address bar. which is a design called Multipurpose bar.) But as time passed More and more Google features have become involved in how Chrome works. When I opened the Chrome browser to write this article The user profile screen appears. This prompted me to sign into my Google Account, which gave Google insights into what I was doing online. The facility also allows me to access Google Docs and Gmail smoothly. Because I’m already logged in.
This is because Chrome plays an important role in the web browser market. A more effective way to root out Google’s bad tendencies might involve sabotaging browsers rather than selling them. Instead of putting Google out of business, Chrome DOJ could keep the browser running (and safe) It removes all the features that make Google services available. Killing the Omnibox would be the boldest move yet. This is because search, which basically means Googling, is no longer offered as the default action on the web. In the same way Removing strict Google Account integration and the associated benefits for Google’s services and data collection would make the company’s monopoly more powerful than a stand-alone browser could ever achieve.
