• A forced sale of Chrome could have a major impact on the browser, search, advertising and privacy industries.

• Aside from the effect on Google’s bottom line, the actual outcome depends heavily on which group would buy Chrome.

• Given that Chrome is simply a reskinned version of the open source Chromium browser, this could be much ado about nothing.

The Justice Department’s request to force Google to remove the Chrome browser has the tech world buzzing. Imagine how strange it would be to call it “Amazon Chrome”. Although the actual consequences of anticompetitive behavior are, in reality, months or years away, professionals like AdGuard co-founder and CTO Andrey Meshkov have already begun to map the potential effects of a such an industry-wide change.

We spoke briefly with Meshkov and came away with insightful, varied, and slightly worrying comments on what the sale of Chrome could mean for the industry as a whole. It’s hard to say what the precise results would be, but the tides could easily move in several specific directions.

How Google Dumps Chrome Could Affect the Industry

More industries than one, by the way

Meshkov offered several broad perspectives on the potential real-world effects of this decision. It must be recognized that at no time did he claim to know the future or discuss results having explicit effects on a particular company. These are the four most important areas where a browser other than Google Chrome could cause disruption.

Browser Market Fragmentation

The most obvious change would be the opportunity for new browsers to emerge. Then again, there’s nothing stopping them from emerging now other than the inertia that keeps the average user from switching browsers in the first place.

Advertising network competitions

Chrome is worth around $20 billion. Google. Its research, data collection, and advertising sales efforts are directly tied to its browser, clearly fueling decisions like the adoption of the Manifest V3 extension rules that cripple many ad blockers. In addition to excluding Chrome from Alphabet, Inc.’s portfolio, the court’s proposed ruling would “require Google to provide its rivals and potential competitors with user-side and advertising data, free of charge and on a non-discriminatory basis for a period of ten years.” years.”

This could have a dramatic effect on Google’s revenue streams, as it would push services and their users away from the longtime search leader in search of greener pastures. Meshkov then emphasized how important Chrome’s acquirer was. A software-focused startup could lead to more beneficial competition, but if Amazon buys it, what’s the point of all that?

Search Engine Landscape

Remember Internet Explorer? It not only came with Windows, it was an integral part of critical system services, and completely removing it could break important functionality. Chrome isn’t as critical to Android’s mission, but its contractual inclusion gives the Big G a direct and easy path to data collection.

Google can would be forced to stop paying for the position of default search engine, which would reduce the revenue of companies like Mozilla to some extent. Such a result could also contribute to the rise of additional search engines, some of which are preparing for it. you may not collect every click you make and sell the combined data to advertisers. Meshkov again emphasized: “With the removal of these exclusionary agreements, the market could experience intense competition, but this could also lead to an unpredictable landscape in which new players emerge, but also in which some well-established monopolies could benefit from chaos.

Impact on ad blockers

It’s not just about Manifest V3. Google’s decoupling from Chrome could trigger wide-ranging forks, or entirely new browser bases, that would split app development across platforms. Fewer resources to focus on extensions in an extremely dominant browser could well make ads more resistant to common blocking techniques.

The upside is that cross-platform ad and tracker protection suites would benefit significantly from a more diverse browser market. Although most of these extensions currently focus on Chromium-based portals, an expanded selection would give consumers the freedom to choose organizations and developers they trust. Of course, this assumes that consumers actually care.

How would a sale of Chrome really change things?

Maybe a lot, but maybe very little

Meshkov made many excellent points in his commentary, largely by presenting widely applicable and reasonably likely scenarios. However, the wheels of justice turn slowly, so we will all have plenty of opportunities to watch what happens in slow motion. The most jaded in the tech world have already reached an incredulous conclusion. That’s a conclusion the Justice Department has yet to address and may not even understand.

The Google Chrome browser is simply a skin applied to the Chromium browser that includes Google-specific telemetry and other requirements. It’s certainly not worth $20 billion to anyone except Google, because without access to the same data collection pipeline, ad sales activities, and Android contractual obligations, Chrome has a similar value to Kiwi Browser, Vivaldi and all other Chromium based platforms. . The court can’t force the open source community to get rid of the Chromium project, so all this might be for nothing.