Ecosia Has Offered To Take ‘stewardship’ Of Chrome. And It’s Not A Bad Idea.

“It’s not absurd, right?” Christian Kroll, CEO of Berlin-based non-profit hunt motor Ecosia, says of his company’s unsolicited petition to beryllium granted a 10-year “stewardship” of Google’s Chrome browser, alternatively of forcing Google to waste it to a competitor.

His thought is astir decidedly absurd, but besides clever.

On Thursday, Ecosia announced it had sent a connection regarding Chrome to U.S. Judge Mehta. The judge is expected to norm this period connected remedies to his 2024 landmark determination that Google has an forbidden monopoly successful net hunt and advertising. 

One of nan remedies nan Department of Justice asked for would unit Google to divest itself from Chrome. Google has not agreed to do truthful (and successful 2024 vowed to entreaty nan original ruling). Still, competitors person been lining up to bargain Chrome ever since. Both OpenAI and Perplexity person said they’d bargain it; past week Perplexity moreover made an unsolicited $34.5 cardinal rate offer.

Perplexity’s connection was wide panned arsenic being excessively debased (not to mention, billions much than Perplexity has raised to date). “We’d deliberation OpenAI perchance would beryllium prepared to salary importantly much for it,” speculated RBC expert Brad Erickson successful a investigation note.

Ecosia believes Chrome is connected way to make $1 trillion complete nan adjacent decade and an auction could value it “in nan hundreds of billions,” he said.

Which is why, connected look value, Ecosia asking to beryllium handed Chrome for free – including power of astir 60% of nan gross generated by its users – seems absurd. 

The connection promises to walk those billions connected ambiance projects, arsenic is Ecosia’s wide mission. Founded successful 2009, nan non-profit donates millions per period and has relationships pinch section communities and NGOs successful complete 35 countries. It has specified projects successful this Chrome proposal, including protecting rainforests, world tree-planting and agroforestry, prosecuting polluters, and investing successful greenish AI tech.

The remaining 40% ($400 billion, Ecosia says, based connected that $1 trillion estimate) would beryllium paid to Google. Google would support intelligence spot ownership, and tin moreover proceed to beryllium nan default hunt engine. When nan decade is up, stewardship could beryllium passed to another, aliases different reviewed.

Ecosia, which uses Google to power its hunt engine, already has a revenue-share business pinch tech giant. And it already offers its ain browser built connected nan Chromium unfastened root motor that powers Chrome. That’s why he thinks nan stewardship thought isn’t truthful out-of-line. “We would beryllium happy to negociate Chrome for them,” Kroll says. Ecosia is moreover offering to support employment for nan Chrome staff.

Still, Kroll admits nan bigger extremity is to get nan judge to see alternatives to nan emblematic divesture options of trading aliases spinning off. Those options would simply support Chrome’s power, and its billions, successful nan pockets of large tech.

“We clasp a way grounds of making imaginable things possible,” he says. Should he get nan judge thinking, “who knows what mightiness travel retired of it?”