The US on Tuesday announced that it may request a judge to direct Google to divest some components of its business, such as the Chrome browser and Android operating system in response to unlawful monopoly in the online search market.
A judge, in a significant ruling in August, said that the Alphabet‘s subsidiary had established an illegal monopoly handling 90% of US internet searches.The measures proposed by the Justice Department significantly change how Americans access information online while taking a toll on Google’s revenues and providing more opportunities for its competitors to expand.
“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” the Justice Department said.
The proposed solutions will also prevent Google’s past dominance from extending into the rapidly growing field of artificial intelligence, according to prosecutors.
Additionally, the Justice Department may request the court to prohibit Google from making payments to have its search engine pre-installed or set as the default on new devices.
Google has been making annual payments – $26.3 billion in 2021 – to companies such as Apple and other device manufacturers to ensure that its search engine remains the default on smartphones and browsers, thereby maintaining its strong market share.
The tech giant which intends to appeal the ruling, described the proposals as “radical” in a corporate blog post, stating that they “go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.” The company asserts that its search engine has gained users due to its quality, highlighting that it faces intense competition from Amazon and other websites, and that users have the option to choose alternative search engines as their default.
Meanwhile, in a separate case on Monday, a US judge said that Google must increase competition in its profitable app store, Play, including allowing Android apps to be available from alternative sources.
Google is also battling a Justice Department lawsuit that aims to dismantle its online advertising business.
The Justice Department stated that it might seek to make Google’s indexes, data, and models used for search and AI-assisted search features accessible to competitors as part of its efforts to prevent Google’s dominance from expanding into AI.
Other potential orders that prosecutors may pursue include preventing Google from entering into agreements that restrict other AI competitors’ access to web content and allowing websites to choose not to have their content used by Google to train AI models. Google argued that the AI-related proposals could hinder the industry’s growth.
“There are enormous risks to the government putting its thumb on the scale of this vital industry — skewing investment, distorting incentives, hobbling emerging business models — all at precisely the moment that we need to encourage investment,” Google said.
