this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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That's pretty bold for a really fucking useless search engine. The EU could just block it and redirect google.com to a gov run searxng instange and everyone in europe would be better off overniggt
They could even make it look exactly like Google. What's Google going to do about it? Get wrecked is what.
It would likely be impossible to redirect google.com without either sparking a cyberwar or building something like the great firewall of China, quite possibly both.
Blocking is somewhat possible, but to redirect, they would have to forge google certificates and possibly also fork Chrome and convince users to replace their browser, since last I checked, google hard-coded it's own public keys into Chrome.
Technical details
I say blocking in somewhat possible, because governments can usually just ask DNS providers to not resolve a domain or internet providers to block IPs.The issue is, google runs one of the largest DNS services in the world, so what happens if google says no? The block would at best be partial, at worst it could cause instability in the DNS system itself.
What about blocking IPs? Well, google data centers run a good portion of the internet, likely including critical services. Companies use google services for important systems. Block google data centers and you will have outages that will make crowd-strike look like a tiny glitch and last for months.
Could we redirect the google DNS IPs to a different, EU controlled server? Yes, but such attempts has cause issues beyond the borders of the country attempting it in the past. It would at least require careful preparations.
As for forging certificates, EU does control multiple Certificate authorities. But forging a certificate breaks the cardinal rule for being a trusted CA. Such CA would likely be immediately distrusted by all browsers. And foreig governments couldn't ignore this either. After all, googles domains are not just used for search. Countless google services that need to remain secure could potentially be compromised by the forged certificate. In addition, as I mentioned, google added hard-coded checks into Chrome to prevent a forged certificate from working for it's domains.
Nah. Demanding the ISPs to block traffic to Google domains would be quite effective.
This isn't like the great firewall of chine where you want to prevent absolutely all traffic. If you make it inconvenient to use, because CSS breaks or a js library doesn't load or images breaslk, its already a huge step into pushing it out of the market.
Enterprise market would be much harder, a loooot of EU companies rely on Google's services, platforms and apps, and migrating away would take a lot of time and money.
Filter it based on what? Between ESNI and DNS over HTTPS, it shouldn't be possible to know, which domain the traffic belongs to. Am I missing something?
Edit: Ah, I guess DNS over HTTPS isn't enabled by default yet.
Just filter out googles ASN and ip's. And stop peering with them on BGP. Simples
Im not supporting this by the way. I think the internet should be free and open, without governments blocking what I can access.
The onpy free internet will be tor. The normie internet has been too naughty and spawned shitty giants who think they can treat us like cattle. Break the critical mass and network effects, kill the blitzscale cheaters trying to enslave us. We do not need them, they need us.
China blocks ESNI and DoH. You have to find a DoH server that is not well known and have to fake the host name.
But if you actually do that, lol
Just block payments from advertisers by revoking their business licence.
Yes, I mentioned that in a comment deeper down. And even before that, just fine them. Chances are they will pay and if not, you can probably seize some bank accounts.
I am not trying to say Google can afford to completely defy the EU, just found it interesting how hard it is to block just google search specifically.
PS: Also mentioned in a burried comment, there actually is a way for ISPs to block google, since DNS over HTTPS is not enabled by default yet in browsers I think. I forgot this since I enabled encrypted DNS like 8+ years ago for myself and just assumed people also have it by now.
You block the DNS ups as well I think. Browsers should have more than one DNS address anyway in case one go down
The backup is usually a different server from the same DNS provider. E.g. google has 8.8.8.8 as primary and 8.8.4.4 as secondary. Plus the backup doesn't even always work on Windows.
Also note, it is not browsers but operating systems that do primary DNS. Browsers may use DNS over HTTPS for security and privacy instead of the one in the OS, but that usually requires the OS DNS to resolve the address of the DNS over HTTPS server, since it is considered a security feature built on top of classic DNS instead of replacement.
PS: Don't get me wrong, EU could definitely block google.com sooner or later. It just wouldn't be as easy as usual. The real risk is if Alphabet stops offering all of its services, chaos ensues. Companies unable to access their google spreadsheets. Services and data hosted on google cloud lost. People protesting lack of youtube...
And even if Alphabet doesn't do that, I expect a lot of issues just with google being unavailable and most people not even knowing there are other search engines. It's really going to be last resort to try blocking google, I expect fines or some such.
I think that if EU was to retaliate against any of the big tech players (which isn’t going to happen imho since eu institutions don’t really display the affinity for swift and decisive justice it would require) it would make more sense to start blocking the advertising and/or data collection. Like a continent-wide pi hole. Still getting the message across while not impacting the users as much. At least not immediately. That said, the gatekeeper platforms should be prohibited from providing services like DNS resolving which are critical for the operation of other services than just theirs.
They probably also could just prevent EU companies and branches from buying google ads directly. Vast majority of ads is geo-located, so there would be almost no ads to show in the EU.
The eu doesn't it to block the search engine from the internet. It only needs to block the google cash-flow from inside EU to Ireland and then it's shareholders.
It would have to be an EU run search engine, otherwise which government?
Nah I don't think the government should run a search engine
Agreed.
Who do you trust more, Google or the EU?
The EU. I don't use google search. I use a degoogled android rom firefox and only use the bare minimum of google search engines. I think the government should promote conditions where fair competition against google is actually possible.