History's biggest break-up: US federal prosecutors say Google must sell Chrome • FRANCE 24 English (youtube.com)
Stock down 5% (on a mostly green day).
Very few companies could afford $20b, and Meta, Microsoft and Amazon are all involved in anti-competitive investigations/suits with the DoJ already, so maybe they won't be trying to buy Chrome soon (but we could imagine a Facebook Chrome being the global default?). None of these want to end Manifest V3 (which is Googles current years-long attempt to block ad-blockers). Chrome could be handed off to a third party non-profit, which would maybe lead to ‘a rapid balkanization of the Chrome browser.’ If Google can't pursue business through Chrome, they might ‘go all in on AI and ... Android' (implement V3 on Android). Chrome is the most ubiquitous, most loved browser by far. (I don't use it, because I care about privacy and security, and don't know if I'm missing anything. I used it in like 2014.) Chome isn't directly monetized (so can't even be sold for much), but it's part of the Google ecosystem, and it's the key part, tying everything together. It's how people access the internet, and every product Google has is on the internet. Bookmarks are attached to Google Profiles and sync accross devices. Login and it has your information, and people do login, to use YouTube comfortably, to do email, to login with their Google account to random websites. Widely, Google can guage consumer behaviour. And Chrome comes default with Google Search. Google has been perfecting Chrome into something people really like, over a decade (if someone bought it they might monetize it more directly and make it a less liked product).
In response, Google called the DoJ a ‘radical interventionist agenda’ pusher. In order to sell Chrome, Google says it has to sell off all the info it has about all the people who have accounts. Google products, when people signed up for a decade, always have a ‘we’re never gonna sell your data' promise. Google is basically saying that the DoJ is saying to sell this to the highest bidder. Also, Firefox is developed with Google investment, but Google's investment in a browser like Firefox must be cooled if they're penalized for their browser, Google said.
Longtime bull J Carlson: Google Is Being Broken Up (youtube.com)
Carlson's tech portfolio. ‘So there’s something wrong with Google...' 'Google's becomming less predictable.'
However, this could be a temporary view, negative, whereas a longer-term view could be more positive, ie actual competition in this tech, wider range of used products, competition, improvement in products, maybe improvements in privacy and security.
Some say Trump will change the DoJ and this might not go forwrad.