Google's Chrome Antitrust Paradox

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2406.11856v3
• Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:32:07 GMT
• Title: Google's Chrome Antitrust Paradox
• Authors: Shaoor Munir, Konrad Kollnig, Anastasia Shuba, Zubair Shafiq,
• Abstract summary: Article shows that Chrome is instrumental in Google's strategy to reinforce its dominance in the online advertising, publishing, and browser markets.<n>It illustrates how Chrome bolsters Google's position in online advertising and publishing through practices such as coercion and self-preferencing.<n>It also outlines potential regulatory interventions and remedies by drawing on historical antitrust precedents.
• Score: 14.631958152016749
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: 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 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 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. (Abstract abridged for arXiv. Full abstract available in published version.)

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