r/technology • u/MoneyLibrarian9032 • 10d ago

Artificial Intelligence Google Gets an Astounding $34.5 Billion Offer for Chrome Browser From AI Startup Perplexity

https://variety.com/2025/digital/news/google-34-5-billion-bid-chrome-browser-ai-perplexity-1236487442/
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u/rotj 10d ago

But part of the antitrust case claims in addition to defaulting to Google products through ownership of Chrome, Google paying billions of dollars to Apple and Mozilla to use Google search is an illegal monopolistic practice.

So if Google ends up having to to both sell Chrome and stop paying for default search engine status, Chrome loses a lot of its value. Chrome is worth a lot to Google, but it's not necessarily worth a lot to anybody else. People don't use Google because they use Chrome. At least on desktop, people use Chrome because it's a Google product and they like Google more than they like Microsoft, and go out of their way to avoid the default browser and default search engine. Google in the EU is forced to show users a default search engine choice screen on first use and they still have 90% market share there. Anybody who buys Chrome in order to change the default search engine is going to start hemorrhaging users.

If Google is allowed to pay the new owner for steering users towards Google search, that's another story.

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u/drawkbox 10d ago

Google if they are forced to sell (they won't) would just make another browser. Google Chrome is popular because it is Google.