The DOJ has decided it will ask a federal judge to force Google to sell off its Chrome web browser as a result of the government’s successful antitrust case against the internet giant’s monopolistic actions in its search business according to a new report by Bloomberg.
Bloomberg reports that top antitrust officials at the U.S. Department of Justice have determined they will seek to compel Google to divest its popular Chrome web browser. The move comes as part of the ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Google, in which a federal judge ruled in August that the tech giant illegally monopolized the online search market.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-11-18/doj-will-push-google-to-sell-off-chrome-to-break-search-monopoly
Updated
Google to sell Chrome AND be banned from re-entering the browser market for five years, recommends US Department of Justice
Earlier this week it was reported that the US Department of Justice’s top antitrust officials would likely ask a judge to enforce a significant break up of Google, in part proposing that Chrome be sold off.
As of Wednesday night, the official paperwork has since been filed and we can now see that the authorities’ plan is even further reaching than initially suggested—though you won’t see me shedding a tear if this break up ever comes to pass.
Not only will a judge be asked to enforce Google’s sale of Chrome, but the filing made to a Washington federal court also outlines that, “following its divestiture of Chrome [Google] may not reenter the browser market for five years” (via The Guardian).
The proposal also calls for Google to be prohibited from “acquiring any interests in search rivals, potential entrants, and rival search or search ads-related AI products,” and that it must let go of any it already holds in its clutch. Furthermore, the documents additionally call for a halt to all “anticompetitive payments to distributors, including Apple” that are made to ensure Google is the default search engine on various companies’ devices.
Speaking of AI, the DoJ’s proposal also recommends that Google offer “data crawling rights” to parties such as content creators, so that they can choose to opt-out of, say, Google using its work to train its Large Language Model AI. Setting to one side the fact that I, as a person who is infrequently funny on the internet, would personally very much not like to see my words regurgitated by AI, anyone who’s recently had to wade through search results flooded with AI dross can see this is a step in the right direction—if it’s enforced.
To recap, this is the result of a major court ruling back in August that found that Google had acted illegally to maintain its monopoly over online search and the advertising markets closely intertwined therein. In October, news began to percolate about which remedies the US department of Justice would seek, with its sights set on Android and Chrome for the part these areas of the business played in unfairly prioritising Google Search and related products.
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