Pluralistic: The worst possible antitrust outcome (03 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

The DOJ Still Wants Google to Sell Off Chrome

In its final proposed remedy filing in the Google antitrust case, the Department of Justice reiterated that Google should stop paying partners for search placement—and divest its dominant Chrome browser.

Google’s Chrome Antitrust Paradox

This Article examines Google’s dominance of the browser market, highlighting how Google’s Chrome browser plays a critical role in reinforcing Google’s dominance in other markets. While Google portrays Chrome as a neutral platform built on open-source technologies, this Article shows that Chrome is, in fact, instrumental in Google’s strategy to reinforce its dominance in the online advertising, publishing, and browser markets. The examination of Google’s strategic acquisitions, anticompetitive practices, and the implementation of so-called “privacy controls” underlines that Chrome is far from a neutral gateway to the web. Rather, it serves as a key tool for Google to maintain and extend its market power, often to the detriment of competition and innovation in the digital economy.This Article illustrates how Chrome not only bolsters Google’s position in online advertising and publishing through practices such as coercion and self-preferencing, but also leverages its advertising clout to engage in a “pay-to-play” paradigm—the cornerstone of Google’s larger strategy of market control. It also outlines potential regulatory interventions and remedies by drawing on historical antitrust precedents. Lastly, this Article proposes a triad of solutions motivated by an analysis of Google’s abuse of Chrome, including behavioral remedies targeting specific anticompetitive practices, structural remedies involving an internal separation of Google’s divisions, and divestiture of Chrome from Google into an independent organization.Despite Chrome’s dominance and its critical role in Google’s ecosystem, as well as its recent legal troubles with the Department of Justice, it so far has avoided significant antitrust action. A key reason for this inaction lies in the long-standing precedent supporting the hegemony of technology firms and the uncertainty surrounding Chrome’s viability as a standalone entity. This Article attempts to address these issues to enable antitrust actions that are essential in remedying current market imbalances. Such actions are also critical to mitigate future threats to competition from an increasingly monopolistic technology landscape, thereby fostering a competitive digital environment that promotes innovation and protects consumer interests.

Pluralistic: Google’s AI pricing plan (21 Jan 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Google is spending a lot on AI, but what's not clear is how Google will make a lot from AI. Or, you know, even break even. Given, you know, that businesses are seeing zero return from AI:

Pluralistic: Capital formation (14 Aug 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Funny thing about competition: there's both a pro-market and an anti-market case for a competitive system. https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/13/one-chokable-throat/#too-clever-by-half

Google is its own worst enemy

In its bid to push AI, it’s destroying its products and trying to kill the web too

Google is on the Wrong Side of History

Google continues to show us why it chose to abandon its old motto of “Don’t Be Evil,” as it becomes more and more enmeshed with the military-industrial complex. Most recently, Google has removed four

Antitrust Analysis of Search Engine Defaults

<p><span>In a search engine default agreement, a search engine pays to be the default search option on another firm’s browser or other search-related product. T

Google v Microsoft: the battle of AI business models

The search giant’s vertically integrated approach is beginning to pay off

What the Verdict Against Meta and Google Says About the Way We Live Now

Serving as a signal of a taste in the courts and among the public to have tech companies bear some of the costs of harm that they have allegedly caused, the recent verdict against Meta and Google in California says a lot about the central anxieties of our time.

Commission fines Google €890 million for breaches of the Digital Markets Act

Today, the European Commission took two decisions finding non-compliance by Google with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for self-preferencing its own services on Google Search, and for putting in place restrictions on businesses to direct consumers to alternative, often cheaper, purchase channels on Google Play (steering). In this regard, the Commission issued Google a fine of €460 million and a fine of €430 million respectively.

Once Unimaginable, Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search

The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators

The Web Can Thrive Without Google’s Search Monopoly

Viable browsers and meaningful contributions to web standards can be sustained with more modest revenue streams, writes Alissa Cooper.

Google Search Really Has Gotten Worse, Researchers Find

"The majority of high-ranking product reviews in the result pages of commercial search engines use affiliate marketing, and significant amounts are outright SEO product review spam."

Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators don't apply to AI overviews. In this case, Google's AI had falsely linked two publishers to fraud and made claims that didn't appear in any of the linked sources. The ruling could set a precedent for AI-generated content liability worldwide.