Former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was interviewed recently, and during that interview, he talked about the DOJ’s latest move to force Google to sell Chrome.
As many of you know, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to force Google to sell Chrome. The DOJ suggested that move to Judge Amit Mehta, who was a judge in the antitrust trial that Google lost.
The former Google CEO talked about Chrome’s forced sale, labeling it a ‘terrible idea’
The Judge will make his decision on how to get Google back on the right path in April of next year. While we wait for that, however, let’s see what Eric Schmidt had to say during his interview.
He said that the DOJ’s “solution doesn’t work, harms consumers and it’s just a bad idea”. Eric Schmidt said that he thinks the whole idea is “terrible”. In order to explain himself, he said the following: “To take an integrated system and break it into pieces and think that somehow that creates choices is not to understand how these products work”.
Schmidt said that consumers want an integrated experience, which is something they get with Chrome. He also took Apple as an example, well, Apple’s App Store, that is, as that’s also a great example of an integrated experience.
Schmidt said that pushing large companies to be more competitive is the key
He suggested that the government should find ways to get large companies to be more competitive, as that would solve the problems at hand, in his opinion.
He also added the following: “Chrome is by far the safest and most secure browser to use, and so if it’s unbundled in some way, customers will just re-bundle it”.
Eric Schmidt was also asked about Google’s deal with Apple, to keep Google Search as the default on Apple products. Schmidt said that he has “been a little bit part of that deal”, and that it’s “incredibly complicated”.
That deal “took a year to come to”, and was “fairly negotiated”, according to Schmidt. He added that the deal makes sense, as the government’s move does not. On one hand, you have a company that thinks it has the best search quality, on the other a company that thinks has the best products. They’re natural competitors, so this deal is beneficial to consumers.
“It doesn’t make sense to force these kinds of artificial structures in pursuit of an imprecise goal”
He also added that it “doesn’t make sense to force these kinds of artificial structures in pursuit of an imprecise goal”, referring to the government’s request.
Eric Schmidt also talked a bit about AI in his interview. If you’d like to read more about that, check out the whole thing by clicking here.
