←back to thread

858 points colesantiago | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.667s | source
Show context
Workaccount2 ◴[] No.45108892[source]
Firefox can still get money, and maybe Apple too. The ruling says they can pay for preload, but not for exclusivity.

Google also must share search data with competitors, but it's not totally clear what this is. The ruling mentions helping other engines with "long tail" queries.

All in all this seems like a pretty mild ruling, and an appeal can generally only help Google from a not to bad ruling at this point.

replies(5): >>45109423 #>>45109446 #>>45110250 #>>45111123 #>>45112203 #
thayne ◴[] No.45109446[source]
> The ruling says they can pay for preload, but not for exclusivity.

From what I understand Google could pay for Firefox to install a Google search extension, but they can't pay Firefox to make Google the default search engine. Even if they get google to pay for just pre-installing it, it's not going to be anywhere near what Google currently pays to be the default.

replies(1): >>45111956 #
1. conartist6 ◴[] No.45111956[source]
I read that part. The court mandates a search engine choice screen initially for each device, then once a year afterwards. Google is allowed to pay for advertising on this screen.

It seems to me that at very least Mozilla will have to renegotiate a contract and it's not clear what they might make off selling ads in that space. Google will presumably not value the lesser advantage as highly, but if the other provisions create more search engine competition there could be growing value to Mozilla in that ad real estate in theory

replies(1): >>45113589 #
2. the_other ◴[] No.45113589[source]
How much could a slot that shows up at most twice per year for ~20s, for ~2% of web users, be worth, and where does that sit in the market? It sounds tiny, to me.
replies(1): >>45113891 #
3. conartist6 ◴[] No.45113891[source]
Yeah it sounds tiny to me too. I strongly doubt that many people will change their choice after the first time so the only way it's worth as much to Google is if they think they can keep the market mostly as anti-competitive, which the government is indicating they should not try.