Comment by lolinder
1 year ago
To try to stem the tide of "Trump will just make this go away because ${corruption}", I want to remind everyone of a few things:
* This is not a Biden-admin lawsuit. It was launched by the first Trump admin.
* Of the 14 co-plaintiffs, only 1 (CA) is a state that didn't vote for Trump in 2024. The Colorado Plaintiff States include another 16 red states, for a total of 29 red states represented.
As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base. This lawsuit was started by them in the first place and if the list of Attorneys General is anything to go by has overwhelming support from the base that Trump is acting to satisfy. Google's not getting out of this from just a small amount of kowtowing now, it's far too late for that.
At the risk of smoting from the Google Gods ( I should be careful, I make a product that depends on their browser ), I think the best thing that should happen to Chrome, if it's going to be sold off - is it becomes a "public utility" and basically is a model for actually publicly stewarded open development. Like maybe what the Mozilla Foundation should have been, like what many actual C-based open source OS projects seems to be (tho I'm no expert).
Why? Because it's essentially the defacto way/portal/thing to access to the biggest source of information humanity has: the web.
It's too big and important for any 1 company - tho saying that, I'm okay with Windows being owned by Microsoft which is (was) basically the same thing in a way.
My unsolicited advice to Google: sacrifice it, focus on AI. To all the people on the Chrome team? They should be financially taken care of, and should be part of the foundation that develops it if they want. The foundation should not be controlled by Alphabet, but should be truly public.
This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you lot...but it is just an idea.
> I'm okay with Windows being owned by Microsoft which is (was) basically the same thing in a way
Windows is much worse by most metrics. I can't fork Windowsium and build (and sell) my own fully-compatible, 99.999999% R&D paid for by Microsoft, OS.
> This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you lot...but it is just an idea
It is a bit vague :) In that: who pays for it? Who decides what features are in or out? Public utilities are generally what we make things when they're feature complete and the only challenge is rolling it out as cheaply as possible. But it feels like web browsers have a way to go yet. There's nothing stopping the US government (or any government) from bulding their own browser off Chromium right now. Nothing needs selling or splitting.
I think the control should be in the hands of the public. Stewarded by a public organization with government funds. What do you think?
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>This is all probably too vague and unspecified for you lot...but it is just an idea.
Forgive me for being blunt, but what idea? If the question is who is supposed to fund Chromium and Firefox going forward then you haven't actually offered any ideas.
It's okay. Yes, it is just an idea, specifically of making it public. I think the government should pay for it. What do you think?
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“ As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though it's entirely unprincipled, it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base.”
Most Arguments in both directions are basically unprovable and amount to propaganda at this point. Degrees matter. Saying “people voted for this”, which both sides say with different directionality, is mostly away to convince people to either support or fight against the administration. Everyone voted for their interpretation of thing X, but will oppose it if implementation Y causes impact Z which they perceive as bad.
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The tiktok ban was the same way, until it wasn't. Remarkable that people are still falling for this.
The TikTok ban was overwhelmingly unpopular among several important demographics and undoing the ban formed a part of Trump's 2024 campaign. His decisions with TikTok this year were a reversal from 2020 but entirely expected based on his 2024 campaign, so that's not a valid comparison.
Essentially what you're saying is Google need to tell their users they will lose a lot if chrome is sold, and Google needs to say a few nice things about trump to get the same treatment.
What about all the other times Trump has done something like that?
Trump's MO seems to be to take something away, then give it back and declare himself the savior of it. Just look at all the chaos with tariffs recently
I suppose a funny, ironic reason people might not know this is because of how Google has been able to algorithmically serve and reinforce results they already agree with, from profiling that it was able to develop through Chrome's dominance.
"It was launched by the first Trump admin"
The first Trump admin was positively benign and adult compared to the current one. The first Trump admin had significant checks and balances on its behaviours.
And of course almost everyone who served in that first Trump admin campaigned against/warned about Trump this time, which should be telling. Or maybe they're just "RINOs" or something.
"As much as it's trendy in 2025 to talk about this admin as though it's entirely unprincipled"
This administration is extraordinarily unprincipled and self-serving. The DOJ as a tool for use at the leisure and to the benefit of the president/king is blatantly in the open[1].
"Google's not getting out of this from just a small amount of kowtowing now"
I would bet real money they absolutely will get out from this. Not only that they will get out from it, they'll get the public "treated unfairly" speech as well.
[1] - There is a major plot point in the 1993 movie The Pelican Brief where the simple insinuation that the president influenced the DOJ in any way would be so politically devastating that it would destroy his administration. This is so quaint now. How far the country has fallen.
> it's actually been doing exactly what it said it would do to satisfy its base
Yes and no.
Lots of quick sweeping local changes were promised to specific states during trump’s rallies in those states only for him to go silent on them post election.
I don’t think flip flopping on tariffs was part of his platform either.
But generally, yes, this is what was voted for.
He takes the gish gallop approach to governing, so it’s hard to make any large statements like this without being a little incorrect.
Yeah, I don't think Trump has any sympathy for Google whatsoever, given how censorious (and proud of it) it was on both Google Search and on YouTube in the 2020 election cycle. Good luck, Google, you're gonna need it.
That said, Chrome is not really viable on its own, and it's the wrong "split" to enforce. The correct split is "down the middle" right through the money-making businesses - create two Googles, with their own search and search/web ads and ensure (through antitrust oversight) that they compete with each other instead of rubbing each other's back. Spin out Cloud and Android/Play Store into separate companies. Separate all four from Alphabet. The rest of the money-losing properties (including Chrome) can be distributed arbitrarily, it doesn't really matter.
Or something to that effect. As long as ads are split down the middle, and separated from Alphabet, that's all that really matters. Unless this happens, any "antitrust" against Google is bullshit for those who can't read its SEC filings.