The Justice Department is reportedly considering a push for a historic breakup of Google’s business empire after a federal judge ruled the Big Tech giant has an illegal monopoly over online search.
DOJ attorneys could ask Judge Amit Mehta to order Google to sell portions of its business – with potential candidates for divestment including its Android operating system, Chrome web browser and promoting platform AdWords, Bloomberg reported.
A possible sell-off of Android – the world’s most widely-used operating system – has generated essentially the most discussion among the many DOJ attorneys crafting the agency’s plan, the outlet said, citing sources with knowledge of the agency’s discussions.
The feds are also weighing “less severe” options, resembling requiring Google to share data with rival serps resembling DuckDuckGo and Microsoft’s Bing.
They may also seek to impose restrictions on Google’s artificial intelligence products to forestall it from gaining an unfair advantage. For instance, the DOJ could ask Mehta to dam Google from requiring firms to permit it to “scrape” their content in exchange for appearing in search results.
In a landmark ruling last week, Mehta determined that Google is a “monopolist” that has relied on billions of dollars in payments to partners like Apple, Samsung & AT&T – including $26.3 billion in 2021 alone – to make sure its search engine is enabled by default on most smartphones.
Mehta ruled Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in two markets – general search services and general text promoting — and located the default search engine deals “are exclusive and have anticompetitive effects.”
The DOJ is predicted to ask Mehta to dam Google from offering default deals in the longer term.
Google shares fell greater than 1% in after-hours trading Tuesday.
A proposal to interrupt up Google can be the primary of its kind by the feds in greater than 20 years. The DOJ won a significant antitrust case against Microsoft but later abandoned a push to interrupt up the corporate in 2001.
The DOJ will outline its proposed remedies to tackle Google’s monopoly throughout the second set of court proceedings related to the antitrust case, that are slated to kick off in September.
Google declined to comment. The DOJ couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Google has already indicated that it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling.
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the very best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” the corporate’s president of worldwide affairs Kent Walker said in an announcement last week.
