Ministry of Justice The United States is proposing to force Google to sell Chrome as part of its antitrust strategy. This is a measure that seems effective on paper, but the reality is much more complex than that.

Chrome, which is independently valued at up to $20 billion, could become a down-to-earth giant if left out of the Google ecosystem.

Why is it important?. Chrome dominates the web browser market with nearly two-thirds market share on both mobile and desktop, but its real value lies not in the browser itself but in how it integrates with the entire Google ecosystem. From search to advertising.

between the lines. Chrome’s real value to Google goes well beyond its role as a browser. More than this:

• It is a privileged window into the browsing habits of billions of users.
• This is a web standards driver.
• And it is the gatekeeper that ensures that Google’s search engine remains the default option for these billions of people.

in detail. The Justice Department’s proposal raises more questions than it answers. Without access to Google’s highly profitable advertising ecosystem, who would want and be able to purchase a browser that constantly requires high investment in development and maintenance?

Consider the case of Mozilla. We are no longer in a temporary but structural crisis. In Firefox you can barely survive but not thrive, quite the opposite. And it stays afloat thanks to deals with Google, which account for 80% to 90% of its revenue. They tried to reduce the addiction but it didn’t go very well.

Go deeper. It’s a situation very reminiscent of Unity’s great predecessor, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer from the nineties, but with one huge difference: today’s Web is much more complex in every way.

Chrome is not just a browser; It is part of a broad infrastructure that also includes Chromium, the open source project that almost every other browser uses, including Edge, Brave, Opera or Arc.

Paradox. The world’s most popular browser, so far behind in second place, may not have much value outside the ecosystem of the person who created it. Certainly much less than the $20 billion it was valued at.

Perhaps the solution is not to physically separate Chrome from Google, but to regulate how Google uses Chrome to maintain its dominance in searches and online advertising.

in Xataka | The United States is officially demanding that Google sell Chrome. You still have these escape routes

Featured image | Photo by Growtika on Unsplash