The DOJ Still Wants Google to Sell Off Chrome

The US Department of Justice wants Google to merchantability disconnected its Chrome browser arsenic portion of its last remedy connection successful a landmark antitrust case.

The proposal, filed Friday afternoon, says that Google indispensable “promptly and afloat divest Chrome, on with immoderate assets oregon services indispensable to successfully implicit the divestiture, to a purchaser approved by the Plaintiffs successful their sole discretion, taxable to presumption that the Court and Plaintiffs approve.” It besides would necessitate Google to halt paying partners for preferential attraction of its hunt engine.

The DOJ besides demands that Google supply anterior notification of immoderate caller associated venture, collaboration, oregon concern with immoderate institution that competes with Google successful hunt oregon successful hunt substance ads. However, the institution nary longer has to divest its artificial quality investments, which was portion of an archetypal acceptable of recommendations issued by the plaintiffs past November. The institution would inactive beryllium required to springiness anterior notification of aboriginal AI investments.

“Through its sheer size and unrestricted power, Google has robbed consumers and businesses of a cardinal committedness owed to the public—their close to take among competing services,” the DOJ connection accompanying the filing claims. “Google’s amerciable behaviour has created an economical goliath, 1 that wreaks havoc implicit the marketplace to guarantee that—no substance what occurs—Google ever wins.”

The DOJ formally brought its lawsuit against Google backmost successful 2020, the astir important tech antitrust lawsuit since the DOJ’s years-long conflict against Microsoft successful the 1990s. The suit alleged that Google has utilized anticompetitive tactics to support its hunt dominance and forge contracts that guarantee it’s the default hunt motor connected web browsers and smartphones. Because of its clasp connected search, the suit claimed, Google tin set the auction strategy done which it sells ads and summation prices for advertisers, and rake successful much gross from that.

Google has argued that its overwhelming occurrence successful search—it has a astir 90 percent stock successful the US market—stems from the institution offering the champion hunt technology. It besides says consumers are easy capable to alteration their default hunt engine, and that Google does look contention from Microsoft and others.

The lawsuit went to proceedings successful 2023, and successful August of 2024 the US territory justice for the District of Columbia, Amit Mehta, ruled that Google has maintained an amerciable monopoly, some successful wide hunt and wide hunt substance ads.

Much of the ruling centered connected the contracts Google has with instrumentality makers and browser partners, which usage Google arsenic their default hunt technology. According to Mehta’s ruling, astir 70 percent of hunt queries successful the US hap done portals successful which Google is the default hunt engine. Google past shares revenues with those partners, paying retired billions of dollars to them, which disincentivizes smaller hunt rivals who can’t vie with those contracts, Mehta said.

This past November, authorities attorneys submitted a elaborate plan to Mehta that included a spate of recommendations for however to champion loosen Google’s stronghold connected the US hunt market. These recommendations included that Google promptly divest Chrome, its fashionable web browser; perchance divest Android; extremity its hunt concern with Apple, successful which Apple receives billions of dollars each twelvemonth for its Safari browser to default to Google search; and springiness competitors entree to Google’s data, for some hunt and ads, “that would different supply Google an ongoing vantage from its exclusionary conduct.”