“Microsoft isn’t beholden to any of these constraints, so they can take full advantage of the remedies without fear of recourse,” Dyall said.
2. 75% Chrome users could flee
Chrome has been developed in-house since day one. “Chrome today represents 17 years of collaboration between the Chrome people and the rest of Google,” Parisa Tabriz, the browser’s general manager, testified in court last week.
Some of Chrome’s core features, like safe browsing and password breach alerts, rely on Google-wide systems, which Tabriz said, “I don’t think could be recreated.”
According to Dyall, this deep integration gives Google a clear advantage. “To split it apart doesn’t make sense because it’s so deeply embedded in their infrastructure,” she said.
But as David Locala, former head of global technology M&A at Citi, testified, a Chrome sale could result in significant user attrition. Even a 75% drop in users would still leave 1 billion monthly active users, he said.
However, stripping Chrome of its Google integrations could diminish its value and alienate users accustomed to a seamless Google experience. As Dyall put it, “What [Locala] didn’t answer is: What does a divested Chrome look like if it loses 75% of its user base?”
3. The Chromium cliff
At least 25 browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Opera, Brave, DuckDuckGo are supported by Chromium. Tabriz said in court that Google has contributed more than 90% of the code for Chromium since 2015 and invested hundreds of millions of dollars, while 1,000 engineers within her division have contributed to the project.
While Chromium is technically free for anyone to use, such evidences indicate that Google does the heavy lifting when it comes to maintaining it, said Dyall.
“If Chromium is divested from Google, the tech giant has no incentive to continue contributing to it,” she said. “The business model of all of these projects will come into question.”
4. The monetization squeeze
The price tag for Chrome is steep—estimated at over $50 billion, according to DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg, who testified in court.
Any buyer willing to make that kind of investment would likely seek to recoup it, possibly at the expense of user experience, said Ameet Shah, partner and svp of publisher operations at Prohaska Consulting. This could involve more aggressive ad placements, fundamentally changing how people experience Chrome.
