Month: August 2025

Calls for Google’s Chrome Browser to be separated from Google could potentially result in a privacy and security disaster for literally billions of people around this planet.

An AI firm just offered 34.5 billion dollars (about twice what that company is theoretically worth) for Google’s Chrome browser, and then almost immediately another AI firm offered a full 35 billion — what’s 500 million dollars among friends, right?

Of course, there’s no obvious indication that Google has any interest in selling off Chrome at this time. Another factor is that there’s speculation that the judge in an antitrust case that Google lost might order that Google divest itself of Chrome as part of a penalty, though that case is very likely to be appealed and go through considerably more litigation so we don’t really know where that case will end up.

But the question you gotta ask yourself is WHY these firms would be willing to pay so much for Chrome. Yes, Chrome has about three and a half billion users who consider it to be their primary browser, and around a two-thirds global market share among the various browsers that users can choose from. And you’re still talking about paying about $10 per user to get up to a $35 billion dollar offer. But the thing is, Chrome is effectively open source. These firms could essentially get the browser sources for free. The Google Chrome browser is based on the Chromium open source project, and that’s the origin not only for the Chrome browser but also various other browsers. In fact, Microsoft’s Windows Edge browser, that they’re constantly trying to manipulate Windows users into switching to from other browsers, is itself based on the Chromium project.

So again, why are these AI firms willing to pay such an enormous sum for Chrome? And the answer is, they probably don’t really care about Chrome per se, they care about those three and half billion users who use Chrome and could be dragged with Chrome over into these other firms’ “AI First” philosophies, perhaps along with their browser histories and all the other data associated with routine Web use. So it’s not the browser they lust after, it’s the people who use the browser.

Now, as we’ve noted frequently, Google itself is going “full speed ahead” into AI whether users want it not — and mostly it seems they don’t want it. But that said, Google still has an excellent history of protecting and securing user data and privacy, related to their Chrome browser’s use and other associated applications. This includes many routine Google and other services and for example the Chromebooks that are so popular in education and industry.

The thought of any of that data being handed over to some external entity or entities outside Google is of great concern to many observers in the security and privacy fields. What will happen if those 3.5 billion Chrome users are sucked into those other firms’ AI fever dreams that again many — polls say by FAR most — users don’t want to have anything to do with at all!

Yes, many people are critical of Google. But there’s an old saying that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. And yes, I myself have been quite critical of various of Google’s policy decisions, especially related to their Large Language Model generative AI push of late. But I’ve had, and still have, a great deal of respect and trust in terms of how the regular employees inside Google — the Googlers many of whom I’ve known — work to protect our data and our related privacy.

The upshot of all this is that billions of people conduct their Internet usage through the Chrome browser, and it’s difficult to see how handing that browser — and those users — over to another firm doesn’t stand a high probability of creating new privacy and security risks for those users who already have enough Internet problems to worry about.

–Lauren–

There is currently what amounts to a “war” between the U.S. federal and state governments against specific Chinese drone makers, with the big target being DJI. And a major issue has been what would happen if the many organizations — law enforcement, search and rescue, other public safety, farmers, utilities, on and on — couldn’t continue to obtain or use the DJI drones in particular that they have depended on for years.

And the discussion has been largely theoretical for most of this period because DJI drones, repairs, parts, and service have continued to be available. But now that’s changing and moving beyond the theoretical and into real world effects, and yeah the situation is deteriorating even faster than even most pessimistic observers anticipated.

I’m not going to try review here all the deep details of how we got to this point, except to note that there are multiple aspects. Confusion over rapidly changing tariff rates is one factor. There have been claims that DJI drones have, or maybe in the future could have security issues, though this has never been demonstrated — apparently DJI has passed every security audit conducted on their products.

Many observers have long suspected that what’s really going on is politically-motivated protectionism from politicians in both parties, because the organizations that buy DJI drones apparently consider them to be more affordable, reliable, and rapid to obtain compared with currently available U.S. made alternatives. And remember we’re not talking just about little DJI drones you can hold on your hand, they also have very large drones that farmers use to spray crops, and big drones that can lower or gather heavy payloads in rescue situations in isolated, rugged areas and so on.

But now, with this confluence of factors, including U.S. Customs reportedly pretty much choking off the supply of DJI products into the U.S., we’ve reached a point where the rest of the world can buy these advanced DJI drones, including new ones just recently released and others likely to be very soon released, but the U.S. is cut off. The supply of DJI products has dried up in the U.S. Out of stock virtually everywhere. Repairs are reportedly taking longer, and parts are difficult or impossible to obtain.

DJI is still trying to get a government agency to do the security review mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act as passed by Congress, and the deadline that would trigger an associated DJI drone ban is at the end of this year. The whole situation is completely nuts.

In Florida, the state government ordered official usage of DJI drones stopped. That means grounding 200 million taxpayer dollars of drones used for police work, fire fighting, mosquito control and more. And the state is apparently only willing to provide a tenth of that much to replace them with U.S. made drones that are typically many times more expensive than DJI drones, and sometimes take months rather than days to obtain.

In some states 90% of public safety drones are DJI. Their drones are known to be exceptionally reliable. An Orlando police department indicated that they had five failures of “approved” U.S. made drones over a year and half, but no failures among the DJI drones they’d been using.

We could keep going through the statistics and more of these cases but you get the idea. We all want a strong domestic drone industry, but agencies and other groups who rely on DJI drones in the U.S. are being cut off from vital technology that the rest of the world can still easily obtain. There haven’t been publicly demonstrated security problems with DJI drones despite the alarmist hype from the politicians.

This entire mess does appear to be politically driven and BOTH parties are to blame. These politicians need to stop this craziness, because they’re not just putting important U.S. businesses and other organizations at risk with this drone ban nonsense, they’ll be putting U.S. lives at risk as well. That’s irresponsible and it really needs to stop, RIGHT NOW!

–Lauren–