@rexmlee has written a new blog article for Purism.
2 Likes
@rexmlee I think the article says “default browser” where should be “default search engine”.
2 Likes
Not think, it simply is.
I miss @Kyle_Rankin more with each passing article; the quality of the ones produced now have gone drastically downhill since they left. I have no interest reading the blog articles anymore, including the ones from @david.hamner.
I only post these articles in the community forums so others can have clean links without appended Matomo Campaign Tracking URL parameters.
3 Likes
You may think it’s an error but Google doesn’t. 
2 Likes
Looks as if it has been fixed now.
1 Like
Err, wait… Is Purism criticising Apple for receiving huge financial payouts from Google for the default search engine, while also shipping Firefox on the Librem 5 even though Firefox is maintained via the funding of the same huge payouts from Google?
3 Likes
I don’t necessarily see a problem here. The world is as it is. You can only change so much of it at a time!
In fact, the preferred web browser is Gnome Web (aka Epiphany) but I don’t think either web browser works “perfectly enough” on the Librem 5 to be used exclusively.
Also, technically it is the DoJ criticising Apple. The DoJ could in theory criticise Firefox (Mozilla) on the same grounds, in the sense that Google (Chrome) and Mozilla (Firefox) are competitors but Google is funding Mozilla in a major way.
The fact is that Google dominates far too many areas of tech.
3 Likes
And a verdict is in: to no one’s surprise, yes, Google is monopolist (but read details or original document). Of course, the trials and appeals continue, so… who knows… 
“Judge Amit Mehta ruled in favor of the Department of Justice, writing that Google has maintained a monopoly in the search and advertising markets.”
“Google’s fate will be determined in the next phase of proceedings, which could result in anything from a mandate to stop certain business practices to a breakup of Google’s search business.”
" Amazon, Apple, and Meta all now face their own monopolization lawsuits from the US government, and Google will go to trial against the DOJ a second time this fall over a separate challenge of its advertising technology business. That makes Mehta’s decision in this case even more consequential for how other judges may consider how to apply century-old antitrust laws to modern digital markets."
1 Like
This.
Wake me up when either appeals are finally concluded or Google does not appeal.
3 Likes
It’s difficult for me to picture a justice or government system winning against these technology companies. When I think about how much of a hard time society gives me for walking around with a Librem 5 instead of one of the phones they want me to have, I have a very hard time picturing that US lawyers and judges would make the same choice. Instead, they are probably carrying the same duopoly spy bricks in their pockets everywhere they go. So, whether the other side of that spy connection is an army of self-indulgent egotistical technologists selecting for what media to send to the social circles of the lawyers and judges – or whether it’s some creepy automaton they created with software – the end result is basically the same. The friends and family of the lawyers and judges would presumably be turned against them if they make the “wrong” choice, and talk to them in ways hand-picked by our content recommendation / manipulation engines so that they arrive at the foregone conclusions that the duopoly wanted them to arrive at.
And the longer time goes on that I just keep trying to be a Librem 5 user, the more evident it becomes that everyone else just abjectly does not care. We’ve constructed a social technology landscape where I don’t know how to picture the forces of good winning, if there even are any, in a situation like this. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for lawyers and judges to do the right thing, but I think that the probability of them doing so is bean-counted and surely minimized to an extraordinary degree.
I saw this without knowing what the right call for them to even make is, to be honest. But this is the expression of the extent of my skepticism or paranoia. Someone told me once that I was simply scapegoating these big companies so that I didn’t have to admit to myself how lazy I had become, and how much I did not wish to do things. Maybe there’s some truth to that… maybe there are ways that I can live better and more wisely. But Google really does have a “location history” feature, and it really does store on their server instead of our devices. When I look into the technological answers to my concerns instead of speculation, in situations where the answer is actually accessible… there’s a lot of creepy out there – hiding in plain sight.
“Of course, sir. You can play judge and walk from here to there on your podium trying to decide whether we are or are not a monopoly. We will allow it, as long as you carry one of our GPS-enabled combined microphone/camera devices on your person at all time. And it would serve you well to remember that this is the power dynamic between us; you will carry a GPS-enabled microphone that reports to us, and it will report to us at our sole discretion and any time we deem it the time to do so, and we will not carry a device that reports to you likewise. And your family members will each also be assigned a GPS-enabled microphone to carry on their person. Keep that in mind; if you make the wrong decision, we know where they live.”
– the totally reasonable reality that our judicial system employees actually operate under
2 Likes
Imagine the shitstorm if it were discovered that a duopoly defendant was actually spying on a judge’s internal deliberations. 
1 Like
“One can only hope”…? You mean specifically, not the normal surveillance, surely.
1 Like
Yes. Specifically targeted with a view to getting a competitive advantage against the prosecution.
1 Like
Sorry, I forgot to put the <sarcasm> tags on my comment
2 Likes
Same article on my Neuters instance:
2 Likes
“rival search engine company DuckDuckGo”
Someone needs an explanation of “search engine” vs. “search aggregator”.
1 Like
DuckDuckGo only uses Bing under the hood as its search engine, and does not aggregate other search engines.
An aggregator of one?
That still doesn’t make them a search engine company, or a rival to Google’s search engine. It also makes me want to avoid them even more, since they’re firmly in Microsoft’s pocket.
2 Likes
The saga continues. Now some details what is threatened to be done to Google search (open it up + restrictions), Chrome (sell) and Android (maybe sell). Seems big but not unreasonable (to me, these “unreasonable” arguments would be less effective if these similar measures would also be done to other big players too for the indiscretions they have committed). More on:
Google under fire: DOJ recommends selling Chrome, regulating Android
3 Likes