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Google can keep its Chrome browser but will be barred from exclusive contracts

(www.cnbc.com)
858 points colesantiago | 9 comments | 02 Sep 25 20:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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Hansenq ◴[02 Sep 25 21:14 UTC] No.45109151[source]▶
This seems like a very sensible and logical conclusion by the judge to me.

An exclusive contract with Apple/Samsung isn't great, but even Apple testified that they would not have accepted any other searcch engine because everyone else was worse. You can't make restrictions on what Apple is allowed to do because Google violated some law--if Apple wants to make Google the default, they should be allowed to do so! The ban on exclusive contracts makes sense though; they should not be allowed to use contracts to furthur their monopoly position.

And similarly with Chrome; it made no sense to bring Chrome into this equation. Google started, developed, and built Chrome into the best browser available today NOT through exclusive contracts, but because Chrome is just a better product. Users can switch to Firefox/Safari (Mac default)/Edge (Windows default); they don't because Chrome is better. Forcing Google to give up one of its best products is effectively eminent domain by the government to a private company.

With the rise of ChatGPT (I barely use Google anymore) and AI search engines potentially shifting the search landscape, who knows if Google will still be a monopoly 5 years from now. Software moves fast and the best solution to software monopoly is more software competition.

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1. raincole ◴[02 Sep 25 22:39 UTC] No.45110031[source]▶
> Users can switch to Firefox/Safari (Mac default)/Edge (Windows default); they don't because Chrome is better. Forcing Google to give up one of its best products is effectively eminent domain by the government to a private company.

Yeah. People on HN just don't use Windows, at least not a freshly installed one. Windows does nudge you to use Edge [0]. On PC, Chrome is not just competing fairly: it's competing at a disadvantage! Yet it just keeps winning.

[0]: https://x.com/frantzfries/status/1628178202395873286

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2. OvbiousError ◴[03 Sep 25 06:58 UTC] No.45112998[source]▶
The regularly flood youtube with advertisments for chrome, I've yet to see my first youtube ad for firefox.
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3. sumedh ◴[03 Sep 25 10:20 UTC] No.45114118[source]▶
> they don't because Chrome is better.

That was because of marketing not because Chrome was better.

The Google.com homepage telling you to use Chrome is one of the best marketing campaign in the world.

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4. shmeeed ◴[03 Sep 25 10:30 UTC] No.45114158[source]▶
That's an interesting observation. If they don't even use it for advertising, what _IS_ Mozilla doing with all those Google millions?

JK, we all know what they're doing with them...

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5. deruta ◴[03 Sep 25 11:31 UTC] No.45114512{3}[source]▶
I'm honestly out of the loop, what are they doing?
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6. maxfurman ◴[03 Sep 25 13:41 UTC] No.45115687{4}[source]▶
Paying their executives exorbitant salaries
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7. shadowgovt ◴[03 Sep 25 14:44 UTC] No.45116425[source]▶
No doubt that Google using their mainpage as a megaphone for the first time in the company's history made a difference.

... but that only got people in the door. What kept them in the door was this image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg...

... or, rather, the word-changing technology underpinning that image: the ability to sandbox individual page rendering instances into subprocesses so that a failure on one page didn't crash the entire browser. I think people sometimes forget how fundamentally unstable browsers were in 2008, and how easy it was to trip over one bad page that would bring down your bank tab, your email tab, your document tab, the three tabs of source code you had open, the seven tabs of unread blogposts... Hugely disruptive. Just didn't happen in Chrome.

Firefox popularized tabs, Chrome let us have a hundred of them open.

8. cvhc ◴[03 Sep 25 15:23 UTC] No.45116884[source]▶
I have quite opposite experience. I've never seen ads for Chrome but frequently see Apple (including Safari). And when I search for "chrome" or "browser" in Play Store, Firefox/DDG/Opera come before the true Google Chrome: https://imgur.com/a/LJiUX4m

I just don't think Mozilla have spare money to film a nice commercial...

9. shmeeed ◴[04 Sep 25 12:01 UTC] No.45126302{5}[source]▶
$6.9M to the CEO, to be precise, which is roughly the same amount as the total of all private donations, grants and government funding they receive. It's bizarre.

Meanwhile they're cutting down on devs, killing products like Pocket and Fakespot, ignoring user feedback, driving strange and off-putting community engagement, and introducing eye candy BS nobody asked for.

In short, they appear to be doing anything but advancing the brand and actually, you know, competing in the browser market. Note that I'm not shitting on the poor devs, I still think they are delivering a great core product despite it all. But market shares and even absolute user counts keep dwindling. What is management doing about that?

And all this would seem like a case of simple mismanagement, if one weren't to reflect the fact that the overwhelming majority of their income comes from Google. The way they're behaving is suspiciously convenient to the entity that is their main revenue source. One could resonably suspect they serve primarily as an antitrust litigation sponge.