The DOJ is asking the court to force Google to promptly and fully divest itself of Chrome, along with any data or other assets required for its continued operation. It is essentially aiming to take the Chrome user base—consisting of some 3.4 billion people—away from Google and hand it to a competitor. The government will vet any potential buyers to ensure the sale does not pose a national security threat. During the term of the judgment, Google would not be allowed to release any new browsers. However, it may continue to contribute to the open source Chromium project.

  • esc27@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    I wonder who will buy it if this happens. Tencent and the like are probably not allowed. Amazon doesn’t really need it. Broadcom and Oracle could make an offer. Netflix might be interested. Apple is probably not. Microsoft would face extreme scrutiny. Meta is probably a front runner, but most likely, if the rulling stands and the current administration does not writhdraw, a back room deal was already made to hand it over to X…

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Wow.

    Holy shit.

    I genuinely cannot believe this ruling came down with Trump and his cronies running the DoJ.

    I guess they were too busy freeing Jan 6th rioters and purging the FBI.

    This is actually good news… I did not think that could happen any more.

    I hope they have to sell off Android too, fuck Google and their ‘don’t be evil’ bullshit.

    EDIT: Derp, this is not an actual adjudicated final ruling.

    But still, the DoJ is continuing to pursue this with ferocity, still genuinely shocked this whole thing hasn’t been obliterated by Trump’s goons.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        Unless I’m reading this wrong, Google would remain controlling search, its the browser (Chrome) and their OS (Android) that would have to be spun off.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Here’s what will happen:

      Trump will pardon Google for its monopolistic business measures, in exchange of cutting back DEI (read: allowing discrimination against minoritiies) and promoting conservative values (read: nazi propaganda minus the swastikas) instead.

    • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Elon getting Chrome would be the best thing that could happen to Chrome.

      … In that Elon would wildly, catastrophically mismanage it, lose money, and possibly blow it all up.

  • normonator@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I don’t give a fuck about chrome personally but good. They’ve only pushed garbage with their majority market share.

    Android on the other hand, holy fuck take it away from Google faster. Every single thing added since Android 11 has been broken or fucking stupid or both. Anybody else at thos point.

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      They’ve only pushed garbage with their majority market share.

      That is not really true. I am as skeptical of their intention as the next guy but they have also pushed a lot of security enhancements and other decent standards (among some more crappy ones).