Technology

59665 readers

2927 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

239

Mozilla: DOJ's Plan for Chrome Risks Hurting Smaller Browsers (uk.pcmag.com)

submitted 4 days ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

67 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The Justice Department's proposal to force Google to rein in and even sell off its Chrome browser business may seem like a win for competitors such as Mozilla’s Firefox browser. But the company says the plan risks hurting smaller browsers.

In their recommendations, federal prosecutors urged the court to ban Google from offering "something of value" to third-party companies to make Google the default search engine over their software or devices.

The problem is that Mozilla earns most of its revenue from royalty deals—nearly 86% in 2022—making Google the default Firefox browser search engine.

"If implemented, the prohibition on search agreements with all browsers regardless of size and business model will negatively impact independent browsers like Firefox and have knock-on effects for an open and accessible internet,” Mozilla says. “As written, the remedies will harm independent browsers without material benefit to search competition.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 23 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm guessing that once Google is prohibited from providing incentives, the bottom will fall out of that particular market and those other search engines will likely pay less, if anything, for the privilege.

[–] billygoat@catata.fish 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Would other search engines be able to “pay to be default”? My understanding is if this went through then browsers wouldn’t be able to take money from any search engine to be the default.

[–] RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

As I understand google is only prohibited from doing so because they are a monopoly and this would be abuse of their position, so smaller engines should be unaffected. For example, if I recall correctly, bing pays Vivaldi to be the default.

[–] billygoat@catata.fish 4 points 4 days ago

Thanks! So then the judgement is two fold. First to split chrome from google. Second to restrict google from paying to be the default search engine on any browser.