There's really no rational reason for third-party cookies to still exist. The only reason they're still around is because an advertising company's browser has like 97% market share.
It would be nice to have a completely open source browser that can be built with a simple one liner from cargo.
Having several thousands of eyes on the code daily to check for telemetry violations, privacy issues, security, and performance daily in mostly a single language, small, and well structured browser repo would be phenomenal compared to the disjoint jumbled messes we have today.
As indicated by the explanation, better for people who believe in FOSS rather than closed corporate software.
Most developers work with a Unix mindset (do one thing well, with focus on simple and easily managed code), which tyically means telemetry is _wildly_ out of line (offers no real benefit for the basics while adding huge complexity), so privacy and security are naturally far better.
Lynx like TUI browsers are a nice idea, but unfortunately sometimes an image is desired to be manually viewed, or javascript is required. It would be wonderful if javascript were simply dropped from most websites, but we don't live in that world, so we're stuck with the next best thing (disabling all js until explicitly allowed by the user).
These are the types of things people in software devs typically care about, which there are many in HN.
Wouldn't consumer like it if they could use Google services on any browser with the same experience without having to give up other browsers? I use firefox mainly but I have to use Chrome when I use Google Meet because Google provide more features and better performance when you are on Chrome (intentionally, not because of other browsers limitations)
This is from the DOJ's page on the Clayton Act, where they give two statements of purpose for the antitrust law.
>This law aims to promote fair competition and prevent unfair business practices that could harm consumers. It prohibits certain actions that might restrict competition, like tying agreements, predatory pricing, and mergers that could lessen competition.
>The Antitrust Division enforces federal antitrust and competition laws. These laws prohibit anticompetitive conduct and mergers that deprive American consumers, taxpayers, and workers of the benefits of competition.
Both are aimed squarely at consumer benefit. Restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour and mergers *where those things impact consumer benefit.*.
Mergers and actions against competitors are obviously allowed in the normal course of business.
Lots of people have other ideas about what kind of antitrust law they'd like to see, but such a law has not passed the US Congress.
> prevent unfair business practices that could harm consumers. It prohibits certain actions that might restrict competition, like tying agreements
So, it's plainly written - ations don't have to actually harm consumers, the fact they could do so is enough - and the key criteria is that they might restrict competition.
The second one points to taxpayers and workers as well. This is especially important when it comes to antitrust action regarding workers rights. Actions which could lead to worse consumer experiences (at least if you consider price to be the end all)
“Taxpayers” is an extremely broad category as well, though you need an appetite for it to argue through that clause.
Though I think you can easily make a consumer argument for Chrome being unbundled (competition for Chromes default search engine pick)
> Restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour and mergers where those things impact consumer benefit..
You paraphrased incorrectly. The correct paraphrasing would be, “Restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour and mergers where those things deprive consumers of the benefits of competition.”
About seven different things. The whole oversimplification that it has to be one single thing has been a drift in policy (over a few decades) in combination with trying to rewrite history books. The fact that you are even asking the question that way shows how successful that rewriting was.
Much better privacy protection and ad blocking.
There's really no rational reason for third-party cookies to still exist. The only reason they're still around is because an advertising company's browser has like 97% market share.
>Much better privacy protection and ad blocking.
The order doesn't mandate that. It mandates google SELL the data it has collected on people to third parties.
There are also privacy focussed, ad blocking focussed alternatives trivially available on the market....and people are not choosing them.
Any company which buys Chrome (Microsoft?) will have just as strong an incentive as Google to track people and run ads.
FWIW, Chrome has a 66% market share: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
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Disliking a company doesn't justify any arbitrary policy against that company
> Microsoft?
It already owns Edge. I would rather bet on Meta or Amazon.
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The same cookies that Google tried to eliminate but couldn't get traction from anyone else?
Google tried to replace 3rd party cookies with new tracking. Other browsers blocked or isolated 3rd party cookies without new tracking.
Which in itself shows 3rd party Cookies will only marginally make the internet more privacy friendly.
That would have been nice in 2014 but in 2024 the big ad industry is ready.
The only ones who will hurt the most are the ones without tie ins to authentication systems like Google auth or FB auth or apple ID etc.
Although I'm sure theres plenty of mega databases which don't need overt auths to ID a user. And contextual ads work just fine.
Perhaps if chrome finally fails people will move to better things, like servo https://github.com/servo/servo.
It would be nice to have a completely open source browser that can be built with a simple one liner from cargo. Having several thousands of eyes on the code daily to check for telemetry violations, privacy issues, security, and performance daily in mostly a single language, small, and well structured browser repo would be phenomenal compared to the disjoint jumbled messes we have today.
Better for who? I use Chrome because the experience has been the best for me.
As indicated by the explanation, better for people who believe in FOSS rather than closed corporate software.
Most developers work with a Unix mindset (do one thing well, with focus on simple and easily managed code), which tyically means telemetry is _wildly_ out of line (offers no real benefit for the basics while adding huge complexity), so privacy and security are naturally far better. Lynx like TUI browsers are a nice idea, but unfortunately sometimes an image is desired to be manually viewed, or javascript is required. It would be wonderful if javascript were simply dropped from most websites, but we don't live in that world, so we're stuck with the next best thing (disabling all js until explicitly allowed by the user).
These are the types of things people in software devs typically care about, which there are many in HN.
Best of what’s available. There’s no way to know what innovations were squashed by Google’s dominance of the browser market.
Wouldn't consumer like it if they could use Google services on any browser with the same experience without having to give up other browsers? I use firefox mainly but I have to use Chrome when I use Google Meet because Google provide more features and better performance when you are on Chrome (intentionally, not because of other browsers limitations)
consumer benefit is not the end all of antitrust.
This is from the DOJ's page on the Clayton Act, where they give two statements of purpose for the antitrust law.
>This law aims to promote fair competition and prevent unfair business practices that could harm consumers. It prohibits certain actions that might restrict competition, like tying agreements, predatory pricing, and mergers that could lessen competition.
>The Antitrust Division enforces federal antitrust and competition laws. These laws prohibit anticompetitive conduct and mergers that deprive American consumers, taxpayers, and workers of the benefits of competition.
Both are aimed squarely at consumer benefit. Restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour and mergers *where those things impact consumer benefit.*.
Mergers and actions against competitors are obviously allowed in the normal course of business.
Lots of people have other ideas about what kind of antitrust law they'd like to see, but such a law has not passed the US Congress.
https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-laws-and-you#:~:text=T....
> prevent unfair business practices that could harm consumers. It prohibits certain actions that might restrict competition, like tying agreements
So, it's plainly written - ations don't have to actually harm consumers, the fact they could do so is enough - and the key criteria is that they might restrict competition.
The second one points to taxpayers and workers as well. This is especially important when it comes to antitrust action regarding workers rights. Actions which could lead to worse consumer experiences (at least if you consider price to be the end all)
“Taxpayers” is an extremely broad category as well, though you need an appetite for it to argue through that clause.
Though I think you can easily make a consumer argument for Chrome being unbundled (competition for Chromes default search engine pick)
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> Restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour and mergers where those things impact consumer benefit..
You paraphrased incorrectly. The correct paraphrasing would be, “Restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour and mergers where those things deprive consumers of the benefits of competition.”
Competition is the heart, NOT consumer benefit.
It has been since the Reagan era, but before that antitrust law had teeth
It literally is
What would you say is the end all of antitrust if not consumer benefit?
About seven different things. The whole oversimplification that it has to be one single thing has been a drift in policy (over a few decades) in combination with trying to rewrite history books. The fact that you are even asking the question that way shows how successful that rewriting was.
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Innovation. Google has no competition and so has no incentive to innovate for consumer benefit.
More future competition and innovation.
In what? How to extract more personal information from the consumer and sell more ads?
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