Prosecutors have demanded that tech giant Google sell off the popular Chrome browser in order to break up its monopoly over the online search business.
The Department of Justice filed the demand late on Wednesday at a Washington DC federal court, just three months after the judge presiding over the case ruled Google was maintaining an illegal monopoly.
DoJ lawyers also asked the judge, District Judge Amit Mehta, to force the Silicon Valley firm, run by CEO Sundar Pichai, to stop entering contracts with phone manufacturers and browser developers that make Google the default search engine.
These deals have resulted in Google accounting for around 90% of all online searches made across the world.
The DoJ’s filing was backed by several states who said that the changes would increase competition and allow for innovation to occur.
The firm is expected to counter with its own proposals by December 20, and Mehta is likely to issue a decision next year.
Government lawyers wrote: ‘Restoring competition to the markets for general search and search text advertising as they exist today will require reactivating the competitive process that Google has long stifled.’
But Google said in response to the petition that the government ‘chose to push a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership.’
Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google, told the BBC: ‘[The] DOJ’s wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court’s decision.
DoJ lawyers have petitioned District Judge Amit Mehta (pictured) to force the Silicon Valley firm to sell off Chrome
Google is run by Sundar Pichai, seen here as he leaves the federal courthouse in Washington on Oct. 30, 2023
Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, US, on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024
‘It would break a range of Google products — even beyond Search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.’
Although regulators stopped short of demanding Google sell Android too, they asserted the judge should make it clear the company could still be required to divest its smartphone operating system if its oversight committee continues to see evidence of misconduct.
The broad scope of the recommended penalties underscores how severely regulators operating under President Joe Biden‘s administration believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that branded the company as a monopolist.
The Justice Department decision-makers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year might not be as strident. The Washington, D.C. court hearings on Google’s punishment are scheduled to begin in April and Mehta is aiming to issue his final decision before Labor Day.
If Mehta embraces the government’s recommendations, Google would be forced to sell its 16-year-old Chrome browser within six months of the final ruling.
But the company certainly would appeal any punishment, potentially prolonging a legal tussle that has dragged on for more than four years.
The measures, if they are ordered, threaten to upend a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year.
Earlier this year, Google was found to have been in an illegal monopoly (File image of the Chrome app on an iPhone)
DoJ lawyers also requested that Google stopped entering contracts with phone manufacturers that make Google the default search engine (File image of the Safari and Chrome browsers on an iPhone)
‘The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,’ the Justice Department asserted in its recommendations.
‘The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages’, it added.
It’s still possible that the Justice Department could ease off attempts to break up Google, especially if Trump takes the widely expected step of replacing Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who was appointed by Biden to oversee the agency’s antitrust division.
Although the case targeting Google was originally filed during the final months of Trump’s first term in office, Kanter oversaw the high-profile trial that culminated in Mehta’s ruling against Google.
Working in tandem with Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, Kanter took a get-tough stance against Big Tech that triggered other attempted crackdowns on industry powerhouses such as Apple and discouraged many business deals from getting done during the past four years.
Trump recently expressed concerns that a breakup might destroy Google but didn’t elaborate on alternative penalties he might have in mind.
‘What you can do without breaking it up is make sure it’s more fair,’ Trump said last month.