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DOJ says Google must sell Chrome to crack open its search monopoly
(www.theverge.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
By "sell," they could also mean ending up having Chrome just split off from Google, as a new, independent entity that is its own company, without anybody needing to buy it in the first place.
The judge would immediately shut that down for creative avoidance. This is an order to sell, not break up. The DOJ specifically indicated behavioural remedies in this case, meaning Google must not remain in control of Chrome.
Currently, it's still recommended actions to the court. Nothing has actually been finalized in terms of what they're going to actually end up trying to make Google do.
While divestiture is likely, they could also spin-off, split-off, or carve-out, which carry completely different implications for Google, but are still an option if they are unable to convince the court to make Google do their original preferred choice.
A split-off could prevent Google from retaining shares in the new company without sacrificing shares in Google itself, and a carve-out could still allow them to "sell" it, but via shares sold in an IPO instead of having to get any actual buyout from another corporation.
Don’t ya love it when people comment saying something that they think must be true as if it were actually true, without having the slightest idea?
How exactly is this company going to make any money?
I assume by continuing to sell data.
Selling user data, selling ad placement, subscriptions for paid services, enterprise-grade support contracts, and the like.
They could also take an approach similar to Google, branching back out from being just a browser into a suite of related tools that Chrome can then convince users to switch to (similar to how Chrome gets users to not just use Google search, but also services like Gmail too.)