U.S. DOJ Considers a Google Breakup

When one considers the results of such a move by the DOJ on MS many moons ago, I am not sure it's worth the (US) tax payers 'money.
Then again, Google has gone a bit too far, especially on mobiles. Just an opinion.
The ramifications of such a decision could mean the end of other browsers like Firefox.

OAT said:

When one considers the results of such a move by the DOJ on MS many moons ago, I am not sure it's worth the (US) tax payers 'money.
Then again, Google has gone a bit too far, especially on mobiles. Just an opinion.
The ramifications of such a decision could mean the end of other browsers like Firefox.

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They broke uBlock Origin with Manifest v3. Caused me to move from Chrome to Firefox. Would love to see Chrome separated from Google and uBlock Origin work again.

Might not be for long as Mozilla gets $510 millions a year from Google -out of posted revenue of < $600 millions (2021-22 figure)

Still works in Edge though.

Divestiture of any company is all on paper, & does absolutely nothing to help the consumers.

Remember American Telephone & Telegraph? I was there back in 1984 when the government said it was a monopoly & split it into 7 baby Bells. I worked under the SBC umbrella for over 10 years, but by the time I retired a big chunck of the most profitable babies plus the mother company was "bought" back by SBC and changed back to the ATT name as it is today. They've since bought out cellular and pay TV providers, now making them the biggest provider in those fields too
Who do y'all think that fiasco benefited? The long term investor, that's who. I can't remember how many stock splits the babies went through.

Breaking up Google won't change a damn thing to help consumers. The subsidiaries will continue to operate as they do today. If they mine customer data now, they will continue to mine data. Only the name will change and the fat investors will get fatter.

I don't see any benefit breaking up google. I also don't understand how they can say they have a monopoly on search. There are other providers out there, and its easy to set a new search provider. They themselves admitted they are on top because they are the best search engine.

People use google because the common phrase is you google something. Not bing something. Not hard to understand. Not sure how seperating that will change anything. If anything all this does is now harming firefox and putting them in danger.

Heck on an android phone you can change browsers, and de google fy it if you really want to. You dont have to use any of google stuff at all, you can even use a third party app store. You cannot really do that on an apple phone so I just am very confused by this.

Time will tell I guess.

andrew129260 said:

Heck on an android phone you can change browsers, and de google fy it if you really want to. You dont have to use any of google stuff at all, you can even use a third party app store. You cannot really do that on an apple phone so I just am very confused by this.

Time will tell I guess.

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One can do the same on a PC.. but most who purchase them pre-built do NOT know how to..

S0C9 said:

One can do the same on a PC.. but most who purchase them pre-built do NOT know how to..

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Yeah and I don't think that is the companies fault that people don't know how, or dont care enough to change.

Now if it is like the case with windows constantly trying to force edge on you, that's another story. That is something that is not okay.

Like this behavior:

Brink said:

“No decisions have been made at this time.”

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Of course not. They have to wait for the bribes to start flowing in.

Gotta hand it to cartoonists. They are quick.

andrew129260 said:

Yeah and I don't think that is the companies fault that people don't know how, or dont care enough to change.

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+1000%
I totally agree.. most are unaware of google tracking, data collection, selling, etc.
They all do it..
I love Apple's new "secure" browser ad for Safari...
Unless Safari stopped filling them, HTTP headers contain data that would freak out many - if they knew what was being transferred.. such as user-agent. Just cuz apple says they ain't tracking it, doesn't mean others are not.

S0C9 said:

Just cuz apple says they ain't tracking it, doesn't mean others are not.

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Apple is probably tracking everything, too. ^^

Just a lawyers fest --remember the spat between IBM and Microsoft over OS/2 which IMO was a far better and stable OS than Windows - but that's all history now. Breaking up a lot of these companies often just makes it MORE expensive for consumers -- just look at how many providers a consumer has to pay these days just to get the same content whether it's sports or entertainment as one did formerly when there were just 2 or 3.

I'm sure the US Federal Gov has much better things to spend its money (or rather its taxpayers money) on --if not they can always send me some -- I won't refuse any. !!!

Monopoly is bad, a bit of competition is good but too much fragmentation and the consumer ALWAYS comes off worse. Some things particularly in highly complex areas do require massive infrastructure and finance -- that's why there's no "Amazon" equivalent in Iceland or St. Lucia for example. Even an economy the size of Germany or the UK has problems for people starting and growing companies of that size and scale. Places like the USA and China are the only realistic countries where that size organisation can sensibly get financed, launch and grow to become world leaders e.g such as China's AliBaba (quoted on NASDAQ as well -- EPIC code BABA).

Cheers
jimbo

Communists have come to power in all countries, only they call themselves by a different name.
Redistribution of property in the interests of different factions is their main occupation.

abactuon said:

Communists have come to power in all countries, only they call themselves by a different name.
Redistribution of property in the interests of different factions is their main occupation.

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Under capitalism, man exploits man.

Under communism, it is the other way round.

cereberus said:

Under capitalism, man exploits man.

Under communism, it is the other way round.

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That was pretty good.

southerndoc said:

They broke uBlock Origin with Manifest v3. Caused me to move from Chrome to Firefox. Would love to see Chrome separated from Google and uBlock Origin work again.

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it maybe worth while having a look at uBlock Origin Lite its based on manifest V3.
i have it installed on Vivaldi.

hope this is of help, best of luck. Steve ..