The United States announced on Tuesday that it may petition a judge to compel Alphabet's Google to sell off portions of the company, including the Android operating system and Chrome browser, which it claims are used to uphold an illegal monopoly in internet search.
In August, a judge determined in a historic case that Google, handling 90% of US internet searches, had established an unlicensed monopoly.
The suggested remedies by the Justice Department might change how Americans access the internet for information while reducing Google's earnings and providing opportunity for its rivals to expand.
The Justice Department stated, "To fully remedy these harms, it is necessary to ensure that Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow, in addition to ending Google's control of distribution today."
Prosecutors stated that the recommended adjustments will also try to prevent Google's previous supremacy from spreading to the emerging field of artificial intelligence.
In addition, the Department of Justice may request that the court stop Google from paying for its search engine to be pre-installed or set as the default on new devices.
In order to maintain its dominant market position, Google has been paying firms like Apple and other device manufacturers on a yearly basis ($26.3 billion in 2021) to guarantee that its search engine is the default one on smartphones and browsers.
In a corporate blog post, Google announced its intention to file an appeal and described the suggestions as "radical," saying they "go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case."
Google argues that the quality of its search engine has won over people, but it also notes that users have the option to switch to other search engines as their default and that it faces fierce competition from Amazon and other websites.
Alphabet, the fourth-largest firm in the world with a market valuation of over $2 trillion, is facing increasing legal pressure from rivals and antitrust regulators.
In a different lawsuit, a US judge decided on Monday that Google has to allow more competition in its profitable Play app store, which includes allowing Android apps to be downloaded from other sources.
Google is also defending against a Justice Department lawsuit that calls for the division of its online advertising division.
Prosecutors may also seek orders prohibiting Google from entering into agreements that restrict access to web content for other AI competitors and allowing websites to opt out of Google using their content to train AI models.
These actions are part of efforts to prevent Google's dominance in the AI space. The Justice Department said that it may seek to make available to rivals the indexes, data, and models it uses for Google search and AI-assisted search features.
Google said the AI-related proposals could stifle the sector.
“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.
Google will have an opportunity to submit its own remedies by December 20. US District Judge Amit Mehta's decision in Washington was a significant victory for antitrust enforcers who have brought an ambitious series of cases against Big Tech companies over the past four years. The Justice Department is expected to file a more detailed proposal with the court by November 20.
The US has also sued Meta Platforms, Amazon.com and Apple claiming they illegally maintain monopolies.
Google's smaller rivals, like Yelp, a review site, and DuckDuckGo, a rival search engine, had previously endorsed some of the ideas in the Justice Department's recommendations to split up the business.
Yelp claims that splitting up Google's Chrome browser and AI services should be an option. Yelp sued Google over search in August.
The GSB Hub published this content on 16 Oct,2024.