alt Hacker News> And those implementers should make decisions, Google should be bound by the FTC to supporting their recommendations.
Is your proposal essentially that Mozilla defines web standards Google is legally bound to implement them?
> what's really funny here is how absolutely horrified people are by the suggestion
Not horrified, but asking what the alternative is. I don’t think you’ve actually got a sensible proposal.
Cooperation in the WHATWG is voluntary. Even if there were some workable proposal for how to drive web standards without Google having any decision making power, they could (and presumably would) decline to participate in any structure that mandated what they have to build in Chrome. Absent legal force, no one can make Google cede their investment in web standards.
We have the legal force to do this. Google has already been determined to be abusing their illegal monopoly they have with Chrome. The penalty phase is ongoing, but consider that even forcing Google to sell Chrome was originally considered as a possible penalty.
Requiring Google implement the standards as agreed by Apple, Mozilla, and Microsoft is not remotely outside the realm of the legal force that could be applied.