Google is facing demands from the US government to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser, as part of a landmark attempt to break up the company.
In an escalation of tensions between the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Google, US officials are expected to request the forced sale in a legal filing later this week.
Chrome, first released in 2008, has two-thirds of the global web browser market and is seen as one of Google’s most successful products, boosting its advertising business and propping up its search engine dominance.
Being forced to sell the browser would reshape the tech industry and severely weaken Google against rivals such as Microsoft.
The proposed break-up comes after Google was ruled to have maintained an illegal monopoly in the online search market in August, landing a major victory for the US government in its attempt to rein in big tech.
After a four-year legal battle with the DoJ, Judge Amit Mehta said Google had unfairly squeezed out rivals. He must now decide how to curb the company’s monopoly power.
As well as proposing the sale of Chrome, the DoJ also wants to force Google to licence its search results and data, allowing rivals the chance to build competing search engines.
They will also ask for its Android operating system to be separated from its search engine and Google Play Store, as first reported by Bloomberg.
The US case against Google was launched under the Trump administration and continued under Joe Biden’s presidency.
Analysts at Bernstein said earlier this year that a forced sell-off of Chrome was unlikely and would not harm Google’s market share as it would still likely use the company’s search engine as its default.
However, Google would have to pay potentially billions of dollars in “traffic acquisition costs” to a potential owner, in the same way it pays Apple to be the default search engine in the Safari browser.
Around 20pc of Google’s searches come through versions of Chrome installed by users, evidence from the trial revealed.
Google’s head of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, said that the US Justice Department “continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case”, adding: “The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed.”