US considers breaking up with Google in landmark antitrust case

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The US government is considering breaking up Google to end its search monopoly, in what would be its boldest attempt to rein in one of the world’s most powerful technology companies.

The potential remedy was released by the Department of Justice on Tuesday and comes after federal prosecutors won a landmark case in Augustwhen a judge ruled Google had violated US antitrust laws and called the company a “monopolist”.

In a court document detailing the sanctions the DoJ could seek from Amit Mehta, the judge presiding over the case, prosecutors said they were “considering behavioral remedies and structure” to prevent it Google from using products like the Chrome browser, Play app store and Android operating system to give its search engine an edge over competitors or new entrants.

The DoJ could also seek to force Google to share user search data with competitors and limit its ability to use search results to train new synthetic intelligence models and products.

Breaking up Google would reorganize the search market in which the company handles more than 90% of online queries and would transform a business that has made its parent company, Alphabet, one of the world’s leading companies. most valuable in the world.

“For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving competitors with little incentive to compete for users,” the DoJ said. “Completely redressing these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control distribution tomorrow.”

The 32-page filing from the DoJ includes an initial remedy proposal and moves the trial to a second phase, in which Mehta will determine the sanctions that will be imposed against Google.

In August, Mehta ruled that Google had spent tens of billions of dollars on exclusive agreements to maintain its illegal dominance in search.

Google disputed the proposed remedies, calling them “radical and far-reaching,” went beyond the scope of the legal issues in the case, and posed a threat to “consumers, businesses, and consumers.” America’s Industry and Competitiveness”.

Alphabet’s shares were little changed in after-hours trading Tuesday and have risen 19% this year, giving the company a market value of $2 trillion, the fourth-largest for a listed company. in the world.

Google’s lawsuit could be the biggest antitrust victory for the DoJ since a judge ordered Microsoft broken up 24 years ago for illegally suppressing competition.

However, that ruling was overturned on appeal a year later, making Google’s case a second opportunity for the DoJ to fundamentally dismantle the dominance of a Big Tech company in an important sector .

As part of the second phase of the Google trial, the DoJ and Google will release their final verdict and proposed witness list on November 20 and December 20, respectively.

Mehta held hearings for the redress requests in April and said he planned to issue a decision by August 2025. Google announced it would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, This may take many more years.

In Tuesday’s court filing, the DoJ identified four areas that its remedies framework for Google should address: search distribution and revenue sharing; generate and display search results; advertising and monetization scale; and data collection and use.

In addition to potential side effects, prosecutors said remedies could include banning the exclusive contracts at the heart of the case — especially 20 billion USD Google pays annually to Apple becoming Safari’s default search engine – as well as applying “non-discrimination” measures against Google products like the Android operating system and Play app store.

The DoJ is also considering asking Google to share its vast trove of data collected to improve its search ranking advertising models, metrics and algorithms, which prosecutors say was illegally accumulated. .

To address any data privacy concerns that result, Google may “prohibit[ed] from using or storing data that cannot be effectively shared with others”.

DoJ also recognizes the disruptive impact AI will have on online search. Prosecutors are concerned that Google will “leverage its monopoly power” to offer its AI features and want websites to be able to opt out of training Google’s AI models or into AI-generated summaries.

According to court filings, Google’s dominance of search text advertising needs to be addressed by lowering barriers to potential competitors or licensing its ad feed to others, independent of search results.

The second phase of testing will be a crucial test for Jonathan Kanterwho inherited the case and has instituted a tougher enforcement policy over the past three years as head of the DoJ’s antitrust unit.

Kanter has sued Apple and is pursuing a second lawsuit against Google’s advertising technology business. Big Tech critic Lina Khan, chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, has challenged Amazon and Meta in separate cases.

This lawsuit comes on the heels of other legal failures by Alphabet. A California judge on Monday ordered the company to open the Android operating system to competitors, allowing them to create their own app marketplaces and payment systems to compete with Google Play. Google said it will appeal the verdict.