Note: Original report by Bloomberg, article by Reuters proxied by Neuters to bypass paywall.

  • vortexal@sopuli.xyz
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    7 hours ago

    If this happens, I’d be interested in seeing how this effects ChromeOS. I don’t use it but my mom does.

    Also, if you’re confused as to why ChromeOS would be effected, while it’s based on Gentoo Linux, ChromeOS uses a modified version of Chrome as it’s Desktop Environment.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Yes I would like to know what that means for ChromeOS and Chromebooks. If the new “Chrome” company got ChromeOS also that would be huge. But if that is not a requirement Google could just put another Chromium browser in ChromeOS. They could also continue to sell Chromebooks but based on a ChromiumOS fork.

  • Rogue@feddit.uk
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    9 hours ago

    Google will bribe trump and this’ll be undone immediately

    • 0xb@lemm.ee
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      6 hours ago

      That would be the logical thing according to common sense and probably according to pichai a few weeks ago, but trump just nominated an anti big tech and musk friend to the FCC. musk is behind almost everybody in ai and autonomous cars so he’ll definitely push to hamper all competitors.

      Sure, we don’t know how far would they go or how long will musk keep having white house influence and I personally think breaking up google is now off the table, but I don’t think they will get off the hook too easily.

      So surely a very big bribe.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Google is such a good company, one the best. Everybody says it. I was just talking to John Google the other day, and he tells me, no really he did, he tells me we’re going to do amazing things together. Oogles of googles. That’s what we’ll sell. Everybody will know about google by this time next year. It’s true.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        You forgot the unrelated rant in the middle about toasters being too dark these days or some shit.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          2 hours ago

          He also didn’t say his name three times in 10 seconds. Then sort of fade off and vaguely look off into the distance.

          They said to me Donald, Donald, they said Donald, they do amazing things, real bigly things, my father, my father, said to me Donald, they do big things Google land. Really good things… Yeah… Big things…

  • barkingspiders@infosec.pub
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    10 hours ago

    Lit. It’s a good ask although it’s not clear what separation means here. Not going to hold my breath, the big corpos seem to usually win these kind of games.

  • btaf45@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    [Google controls how people view the internet]

    This doesn’t quite make sense. How does Chrome “control how people view the internet”? Isn’t html/css the main thing that controls how people view the internet?

    [ and what ads they see in part through its Chrome browser, which typically uses Google search,]

    But it is trivial to change your default search agent right?

    Is this move something we should view as a good thing, and if so, then why?

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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      57 minutes ago

      Chrome has a massive market share and Google abuses that market share by breaking web standards, and pushing people towards Chrome because “the competition doesn’t work”.

      They act in bad faith and abuse their position to more deeply entrench their position in anticompetitive monopolistic ways.

      That’s the Crux of it.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Essentially, everything is Chrome, Firefox or Safari.

      Brave, Edge etc are chrome.

      Most people are using chrome.

      Google controlling chrome controls what the vast majority of people use to see the internet, and then they change chrome to make it harder for you to block ads that they want to show.

      There’s no reason for chrome to break ad blockers unless it’s owned by an ad company.

      Edit: Google done some other shady things by owning it in the past as well.

    • Landslide7648@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 hours ago

      Breaking up monopolies is a good thing, and Google arguably holds too much power. Chromium is being used in 70% of browsers, and the decision how to implement and develop web standards are all in the hand of one for profit company, which had little interest in keeping things open and accessible (and private).

      A quote from this Register article sums it up nicely:

      What we are forced to assume in turn is that Chrome is built by the professional developers working for an ad agency with the primary goal of building a web browser that serves the needs of other professional developers working for the ad agency’s prospective clients.

    • btaf45@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      What’s to stop them just making another browser?

      Nothing. Chromium is open source. So they could just fork it and declare a new “official” google browser and it would be a lot like Chrome.

      I’m not sure why the govt thinks forcing google to give up a particular fork/branch of an open source browser is all that meaningful. It might make more sense if Chrome was a closed source one of a kind browser.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        I’ve worked in the aftermath of DoJ agreements like this one. The DoJ is not stupid (or at least didn’t used to be) and will have stipulations about removing Google employees from governance/write permissions to the project, with follow up check-ins every few months to make sure any shenanigans aren’t occurring.

        …none of that matters though now that the DoJ is going to be dissolved.

      • Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
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        7 hours ago

        That’s exactly what I was thinking. It also makes Chrome essentially worthless to anyone except Google.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Not needed. Internet Explorer existed for years after the 90s. It wasn’t killed by the courts. It was killed by the fact that it’s only function was to install a better browser on first boot.

      • cdf12345@lemm.ee
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        8 hours ago

        I think you are severely underestimating how many people don’t even understand the difference between windows, explorer, a web browser and even the Internet itself during the 90’s well into the 2000’s even 2010’s.

        That’s who kept IE alive

        • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          No offense but it was the US Government. Most of their websites were coded for it, and quite a few of them didn’t work properly or reliably in other browsers as a result. This was true up until it was sunsetted and they were forced to update to edge and some of the websites still haven’t been properly moved over to chromium. When the pandemic hit and the Armed forces had to setup remote work for thousands of people Microsoft basically built them a fork of Teams. The US Government is kind of running hand in hand with Microsoft on a lot of stuff if you just hazard a cursory look.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      They didn’t make the first one! They got it from Apple, who themselves got it from KDE.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        It has a soft paywall.

        I think the common practice is to link to the original in the URL bar and then use the body text to do paywall/loginwall removals.

      • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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        10 hours ago

        Then leave that to every one else to deal with; don’t make other people wear your tin-foil hat. Or just start your own community and call it “Dot’s Offbrand Extravaganza” or something.

        • xodoh74984@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Pretty sure this is more about access and performance than privacy. I never knew about this site before, but damn, a news article that only contains words on a page and loads quickly? I thought news websites were supposed to be hostile to users?

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    This is probably the real reason corporate America had no interest in endorsing Harris.