Re:The Right to Lie and Google’s “Web Environment Integrity”
by kelnos on Sunday July 30, 2023 @08:11PM
(#36937443)
The thing that I always wonder about when we talk about anti-trust action to break up big companies like this... how will that actually fix things? If Chrome, Inc. was its own independent company, it would still be incentivized to do things that Google Ads, Inc. wants.
Mozilla is barely able to fund itself, and a big chunk of that funding comes from Google. Surely Google is careful to avoid any overt impropriety with that relationship, since they don't want to come under more regulator scrutiny. But why would a Chrome, Inc. care about that sort of thing? They'd take the same money from Google Search, Inc. that Mozilla does to keep Google as its default search engine. They'd still happily implement WEI and other garbage that Google Ads, Inc. wants, and Google Productivity, Inc. would still ensure that Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. are all super-compatible with Chrome (and work with the Chrome team to ensure that's the case), and not care so much about other browsers.
I have no doubt that things would be better if we were to break up big conglomerated companies like this, but I'm not entirely sure that breaking up Google would achieve the goal of helping the web remain open.
Mozilla is barely able to fund itself, and a big chunk of that funding comes from Google. Surely Google is careful to avoid any overt impropriety with that relationship, since they don't want to come under more regulator scrutiny. But why would a Chrome, Inc. care about that sort of thing? They'd take the same money from Google Search, Inc. that Mozilla does to keep Google as its default search engine. They'd still happily implement WEI and other garbage that Google Ads, Inc. wants, and Google Productivity, Inc. would still ensure that Docs, Sheets, Drive, etc. are all super-compatible with Chrome (and work with the Chrome team to ensure that's the case), and not care so much about other browsers.
I have no doubt that things would be better if we were to break up big conglomerated companies like this, but I'm not entirely sure that breaking up Google would achieve the goal of helping the web remain open.