Google and Chrome really need to be broken up. Maybe people should start writing (physical) letters to the FTC asking to review Google’s recent actions as monopolistic behavior.
It wouldn’t be the first time. But showing the interest is the best way to get the ball rolling that we can do.
Honest curiosity on your answer to this.
Google is the developer of Chromium and the Chrome browser which uses Chromium. Chromium is free and open source (though owned by Google).
I’m not sure how you break up Chrome and Google. That’s literally their product. Who are we giving this to? There are browsers that do not use Chromium (e.g., Firefox and Safari being the big ones).
Companies have gotten broken up before, like AT&T once did many years ago. In this case, a Google breakup would probably separate some of their services into different companies. At the very least Google (the “advertising” company) should be separate from Chrome (the “browser” company), because it creates a conflict of interest and creates monopolistic behavior.
In any case, trying to do something is better than doing nothing and hoping it turns out all right.
I think the poster is making a good point though- In this split, google the advertising company can freely contribute to the open source chromium. You need some model that leads the chromium maintainer to reject changes like this.
Google isnt Google anymore. It’s Alphabet. Alphabet includes Google domains, Android, Gmail, YouTube, chrome, Google search, search ads, play store, fuscia, Google maps, authenticator, chat, classroom, assistant, meet, nest, pixel, waze, Gboard, messages, google tv, Google photos and the rest
Each one of these have their own presidents, their own boards, their own teams. They are all directed by Alphabet.
I didn’t include details because I still had to research after the comment, but this page details several methods of contact. The antitrust email looks like a good place to start if you don’t want to mail anything. But physical mail is harder to ignore, it actually has to get into someone’s hands and be dealt with. So I’ll try to write up a letter and send that to maybe the regional office nearest Google’s HQ.
