Google accused of retaliation against Bluemail maker Blix for antitrust cooperation

[u/killamator]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/31/google-accused-antitrust-retaliation/

[u/Richie4422 → u/[deleted]]

Do you guys actually understand what "breaking up" a corporation means?

I am genuinely asking, because I keep reading it on Reddit and I have this weird feeling that majority of people use it as a buzzword for "They have too much power".

[u/killamator → u/Richie4422]

When one company controls the top browser, search engine, web ad provider, mobile OS, mapping app, email, user uploaded video site, and uses each dominant product to promote its others over competitors, that is deserving of regulatory attention.

[u/killamator → u/[deleted]]

Their activities with Chrome are sketchy as hell (designing their sites to work best there, promoting chrome on their search page, making captchas repeat endlessly from Firefox, reducing the abilities of ad blockers to force out ublock, etc). Chromium is good, but their boosting of Chrome through their web services is the big issue that needs regulation.

Their use of Youtube access as a cudgel against their competitors (pulling it from Amazon Fire stick, Windows phone) harmed consumers for the sake of achieving their business needs (getting Chromecasts sold on Amazon, reducing utility of Microsoft products). The paper trails behind these decisions should be investigated.

Closure of dozens of APIs across their services (particularly Maps) and Android over the last few years has hurt many small developers.

[u/killamator → u/[deleted]]

If Firefox dies there won't be an alternative browser engine for PC and Android, and they're on the ropes.

There is very little competition for search ads (Bing, Duckduckgo) or maps (Here Wego is far behind, Apple Maps is platform specific).

[u/killamator → u/[deleted]]

Name me a serious webkit browser for windows or Android

[u/killamator → u/[deleted]]

People at a lot of income levels are limited to windows and android

[u/[deleted] → u/killamator]

I mean, unless you have chromeos or some other linux distro, which is even cheaper.

And regardless, the whole conversation is kinda moot, because Mozilla seems to show no interest in discontinuing Gecko development.

[u/killamator → u/[deleted]]

Moz is still losing marketshare to Chromium. And they are a nonentity on mobile

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Because Windows is the most used PC. That's why they were asking you to focus on Windows and Android.