So as I understand it, Google’s using it’s monopoly market position to force web “standards” unilaterally (without an independent/conglomerate web specification standards where Google is only one of many voices) that will disadvantage its competitors and force people to leave its competitors.
I’m not a lawyer, and I’m a fledgling tech guy, but this sounds like abuse of a monopoly. Google which serves 75% of the world’s ads and has 75% of the browser market share seems to want to use its market power to annihilate people’s privacy and control over their web experience.
So we can file a complaint with FTC led by Lina Khan who has been the biggest warrior against abuse by big tech in the US.
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation
We can also file a complaint with the DOJ:
https://www.justice.gov/atr/citizen-complaint-center
And there have to be EU, UK, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese organizations that we can file antitrust complaints to.
Even if alternatives die though, we could force google to sell off portions of itself to up and coming orgs/options like they did with AT&T. Or put in privacy protections that will allow alternatives to begin again and grow.
I don’t understand the ins and outs of it all but we can’t let fear of it taking too long or alternatives dying stop us from fighting monopolies and privacy protections.
P.S. If any lawyers and people really knowledgeable about web technologies and standards here on Lemmy can get together and help us draft something together that we can all send in, that would be amazing.
Everyone should go over to Firefox as well as advocate against this.
You’re right - this is very reminiscent of the Microsoft Antitrust suit of 1998. Technically, per that ruling, Google could be subject to an AT&T style breakup. However, it’s pertinent to note that on appeal, the Justice Department chose to settle with Microsoft on the issue of splitting the company rather than go back to trial.
Clearly, in the real world, the ruling didn’t stick, as today Microsoft, Apple, and Google all package their browsers on their operating systems. As such, I don’t think it likely that enforcing an API standard would exceed the current antitrust abuses that we’ve come to accept as a fact of daily life, and highly unlikely to attract a serious case from the Justice Department.
That being said, I fully support your effort - we’ve needed stronger antitrust enforcement for a long time, and AT&T shouldn’t have been the high watermark of the Justice Department’s efforts in this arena.
The FTC couldn’t stop the Microsoft Activision acquisition, the largest tech acquisition in history, even though it was blatantly anticompetitive, and even though the FTC chair and the judge were both Biden appointees (although the judge was both incompetent and potentially biased towards Microsoft, but still)
My point being, what are the chances they’ll be able to stop something like this? Antitrust enforcement is dead in this country. The megacorps won.
I am so disappointed. With that attitude, we can’t accomplish anything. With that attitude, our ancestors would have accomplished nothing
Yeah, Lina Khan lost that fight. But he’s not the only judge out there. And the United States isn’t the only country Google and Chrome are responsible to.
Didn’t the UK block the acquisition?
