The US Department of Justice is trying to break up Google's monopoly by ordering it to sell the Chrome browser and to stop forcing phone manufacturing companies to make Google their default search engine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp81ppr3l9go.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/d...ts-2024-11-18/

Trump will be sworn in and this will die out. Lina Khan is going to be out of job soon unfortunately.

Guess it depends which side of the bed Donald gets out off in April or August next year, or perhaps is only a question of whether Google offers big enough bribes.

Well, two issues here if we leave out politics and Apple.

One is that Android comes from Google doesn't it? Everyone had a fit when Microsoft made a mobile OS and sadly it is gone. We had admin on it without having to root it. So, everyone said use Android.

There are a few alt mobile os's that only sort of work on phones. Not for the beginner yet. Again sadly.

The bigger issue is security. Billion or so devices running outdated and non-updatable are online.

When Bell was dismantled it just created more Bell clones that were basically doing what they wanted.

IBM was under anti-trust order for like 30 years. Stifled great inventions.

If it was any other presidency this would be laughable or unthinkable. Trump is vulnerable; he can be influenced.

As far as I remember Windows Phone never really took off, even when Elop handed Nokia to Microsoft on a plate. I thought that was down to it not being very good, rather than any worries about MS being too powerful, but it's interesting to learn it was less locked-down than Android.

I think it's high time the corporate world stopped peeing its pants over rooted phones. I've done internet banking for decades from OSes that I'd installed myself, but my bank doesn't want me running their app on a fully-updated Android device if I have root. Yet they'll happily run it on one of those "outdated and non-updatable" 'phones.

No government wants to lose the tax revenue from a big multi-national, so I dare say Google would get some special considerations, Trump or not. Microsoft's anti-trust case turned out pretty toothless under GWB.

Funny you mention windows phones.

IMHO, that was always "born to fail." We had Apple & Android filling the market. So any 3rd effort was going to be a compatibility nightmare. My son was an App developer here, and was close to the fundraising efforts of some loser app he was working for. M$ was prepared to back them even if others wouldn't, but wanted exclusivity. IOW, they couldn't built for Apple or Android. They reckoned M$ was a dud OS anyhow, and went away. The crashes and promises of a bug-free environment scared the bosses away.

If that was the M$ policy, they'd end up with loser Apps on their OS which wouldn't win them any business. And they still were ironing out bugs, crashes & reboots. You NEEDED admin at whatever stage he had it.

From the software development perspective, how will this happen?

Won't the buyer have to employ the staff who develop and release new versions of the browser?

What about the testing infrastructure?

The source of Google Chrome is Chromium, which is supposed to be a community effort. For each release, Google takes an appropriate build and then slaps on its "proprietary" bits. For MS Windows, for Apple, for Linux.

Chrome for Android is so deeply part of the Android system. How will selling that work?

Misleading thread title as they haven't been "ordered" to do anything yet. DOJ proposing something to the court doesn't mean it's happened, or even will happen.

Kind of bugs me when people predict the future based on some political or other reasons.
Wish they'd predict me some winning lotto numbers.

The fact is that the issue had been posted above where there is a good chance the break up will happen..


I LOVED my Windows phones. Loved, loved, loved. Always worked with my vehicle. Did everything I needed it to do.

I was referring to Trump, the person, not the government in general. In his first term he benefited directly in his presidency by getting lots of people to stay at his hotel. I'm sure that there are lots of other ways that rogue nations can buy him. He's open for business.

Methinks that if Google's profits nosedive, the only ones to be greatly put out will be the Irish Government, who gets 15% in tax revenue. So there will be a billion or two less for our lot to mis-spend.

BTW, my son was on. He loved and praises the M$ mobile OS. But they were locked in somehow with Nokia initially at least, and that was never going to go far.

Then I'd think M$ should be forced to give up Edge as well to be fair if Google hs to give up Chrome.

Google is breaking no laws by supporting Chrome, any more than M$ is by supporting [XXX]Internet Explorer[/XXX] Edge. You have always been able to choose your search-engine preference: if you can't be bothered, "that's on you."

Don't like Chrome? (I don't ...) So, install something else more to your liking. You've never been prevented from doing that.

Microsoft's abortive attempts to introduce a third mobile-phone operating system were basically doomed from the start, because it is "a solution in search of a problem." Both Android and iOS are (now ...) fundamentally based on Unix/Linux, and therefore it's easy now to produce "cross-platform apps." The market was never demanding a third alternative. Microsoft would simply be dumping a lot of money into an effort that had little if any chance of "return on investment." It would be "different, but not better." Therefore, not worth pursuing. The money should be invested in what they already own.

No. Trump always starts a negotiation by hitting his counterparty on the head with a tariff threat. So the first thing Trump will do is threaten google with a large tariff.