If the article is true, it would be worse than a cartel, it would be effectively a monopoly with a few sockpuppet competitors.
In an actual cartel or oligopoly, you'd expect at least the cartel members be relatively equal in power. But if the article is right, then Google has basically all the power to decide the course of web tech going forward, as the other browsers devs can't meaningfully deviate from whatever vision Google has for the web, without risking their funding.
In an actual cartel or oligopoly, you'd expect at least the cartel members be relatively equal in power. But if the article is right, then Google has basically all the power to decide the course of web tech going forward, as the other browsers devs can't meaningfully deviate from whatever vision Google has for the web, without risking their funding.