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Comment by BrendanEich | Hacker News Reader

> the DOJ order is also asking to ban payments between search engines and browser makers

The remedy document does not ask this.

What you cite after "> As detailed in..." does not ban any and all payments from a search engine (or only from Google) to a browser. The remedy doc is based on the antitrust case's finding that Google violated U.S. Law by abusing its monopoly through "tying", and in particular by forcing partners to lock out competitors through exclusive (default search only) deals.

This does not mean Google cannot pay for search traffic, and indeed Google has a relatively open, albeit lower-monetizing, system called Adsense for Search, which allows a toolbar to monetize -- but not a browser via queries entered into its address bar (aka Omnibus). Bing does many API deals, or did (it hiked prices last year). Brave has an API business (not yet an ads feed, just search).

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I'm having a bit of a hard time imagining what kind of payment Google could make under this structure. Do you have something in mind?

I agree that if Google was paying a browser for something other than default search placement, that would likely fall outside the scope of the proposal. But historically, default placement = traffic, and is also the only leverage the browsers have - ie if Google wasn't the default, Google would only get users who explicitly selected it, and if Google knows all of their users are actively selecting them already, they have no reason to pay extra for that traffic.

API access seems like a good alternative way for Google to monetize, but it doesn't solve the problem of providing funding for browsers (except in your case, since you're combining a search engine and browser in one company). Or am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing how browsers without search engines could do fair and non-discriminatory pay for traffic deals with Google in a remedy that follows the spirit and letter of Sherman-Clayton and Robinson-Patman.

Again, the document does not say "no payment of any kind under any terms".

Fair and non-discriminatory (standard rate card, open ad confirmation/reporting tech using least-tracking and first party scripts, no native Chromium tracking crap) search and search ads feed API deals would let 1000 browsers bloom.

I mentioned Adsense for Search (AFS) and toolbars, but it seems Google now limits AFS to websites with search boxes. In pre-Chrome era, it let many toolbars for IE (7 or even 8, they both sucked) monetize this way. This toolbar support went away around 2012 as the Chrome Hegemon took over. AFS never allowed a browser (vs. a toolbar) to monetize from omnibox-style UX, no surprise. Monopoly behavior was on display even before Chrome took 2/3rds of the browser market.

Spellcorrekt got me: "Omnibox".

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