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.
Break up Google.
Browser is one company. YouTube is another. The search a third company. The ad one has to be the richest and should be it’s own.
Then once you cut down Google into manageable companies, go after Facebook.
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While Google failing would definitely cause a disruption, I don’t think they are too big to fail. I’ve done some experimenting with other search engines and Kagi & Duckduckgo are both sufficient.
Gmail is very popular, but everyone could find another email provider. Losing YouTube would hurt but we have other large sites with infrastructure that could cover. Facebook, Twitter, reddit, Instagram, tiktok, etc. Together I think they could take on the bandwidth
As for the browser, I’d be glad if Chrome died. We need more browsers. Chrome dying would force all of the derivatives to do something else. Vivaldi, edge, brave, etc would all need to either switch to Firefox or a project for a new browser would begin
I think while disruptive Google failing would ultimately be good. We have anti-trust laws for a reason and we need to actually use them. If we don’t enforce them, why did we pass the laws in the first place? The market stagnated and the consumers lose. Plus we fall behind pragmatic countries like China who are blazing forward full speed. Their government is more than willing to turn the $$$ hose to innovate in technology. Here in the US we rely on the market. But if we hamstring the market with a monopoly… just a recipe for disaster in my opinion
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Anyone who hasn’t planed for this with an account on another service, at the very least like proton, kinda deserves whats coming due to the signs.
I’m no soothsayer and even I can see that Google is making enemies with governments, China, US, and Europe. You can survive one or two but not all three.
The world is much larger than just the wealthy nations. Where I’m from, the internet is synonymous with Google, emails with gmail and online video sharing with YouTube.
Digital literacy is hard to worry about when you are struggling to improve your life. Even outside of harsh situations it’s not okay to expect everyone to literate themselves.
People like that need to be educated more than any other and liberating them of that responsibility only harms them, it does not help them.
Digital illiteracy is easy to combat. You just put the person on a different service. As long as it “just works” they’ll be fine.