Google used its browser Chrome and paid billions for companies such as Apple and Samsung to overcome online search. Doj wants to break the monopoly by making Google sell chrome.
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Google will have to participate with its prevailing Chrome browser if the US Department of Justice has its own way.
Google Chrome relocation is one of the remedies required by the Department of Justice Antitrust Division in a proposal presented on Friday, signed by the acting prosecutor OMED ASSEFI, all part of a lawsuit initiated in 2020.
The Justice Department has argued that Google has used the Chrome browser to create a monopoly on online search and advertising. The technology giant also paid third parties to use Chrome as its predetermined search engine, argued the Department of Justice and more than 45 states, which brought the lawsuit along with the agency.
“Google’s behavior poses a real risk to market freedom and strong competition in our economy,” the plaintiffs said in Friday’s appearance.
This appearance and one presented by Google, also on Friday, precede an expected hearing next month with a decision by US District Judge Amit Mehta to come in August, Bloomberg reported.
The judge has already stated “Google is a monopoly, and he acted as one to preserve his monopoly”, in an opinion presented in August 2024.
Google Distribution Deals – such as Paying Apple and Samsung Billions each year to make Chrome the predetermined search engine on smartphones and tablets – have allowed it to acquire monopolial power in the advertising of the text and general search, Mehta wrote in his opinion in August 2024. “This behavior has allowed Google to earn monopole profits.”
Mehta noted that in 2021, Google paid a total of $ 26.3 billion for Apple, Samsung and other companies like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to provide Google search engine as pre-election to consumers. “Google has illegally used distribution deals to hinder competition and maintain its monopoly on the market for general search services and in various online advertising markets,” Mehta wrote.
“Google’s dominance eventually drew the attention of antitrust implementers – the US Department of Justice and almost the Prosecutor General of any state,” Mehta wrote.
If you are forced to sell Google Chrome, the price can approach $ 20 billion, Bloomberg reported. But it would be a big blow to the technology giant.
In his proposal, Google says he can match the Mehta decision without diverting Chrome and, on the contrary, changing its licensing deals with companies such as Apple to remove exclusive conditions in Chrome, Google Search and other applications.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President of Google Regulatory Affairs and its parent company, Alphabet, characterized the Department of Justice in December as going “far from what the court’s decision has to do with our partners to distribute the search,” she wrote in a blog post.
“But the biggest problem is that the DOJ proposal will hurt US consumers and undermine the global leadership of American technology at a critical point – as we are seeking to share people’s private search questions with foreign and domestic rivals, and limiting our ability to innovate and improve our products,” she wrote.
The Justice Department made a recommendation for Google to also divert its investments in artificial intelligence, choosing to request Google to notify officials before any future investment.
US VS Google: Then and now
The antitrust lawsuit began during President Donald Trump’s first term as part of his vow to obtain great technology. It was the largest antitrust case against a technology giant after the Department of Justice sued Microsoft nearly two decades ago. This case resulted in a solution.
The case against Google continued during the Biden administration, but now Trump -led Justice Department is moving the issue forward.
While Google is expected to appeal to the judge’s final ruling, the Justice Department may not want to achieve any drugs involved in his final proposal. What has been given to the court may be part of a “maximum position of the maximum opening from which they can negotiate,” said Paul Swanson, a judicial partner who focuses on technology and antitrust in the Netherlands & Hart LLP in Denver, Kotorado, Wired.
“One through the line here is that this administration wants to be perceived as harsh in technology, but also not to slow down the growth of American technology industries,” he told Wired. “So they can signal more action than those who eventually want.”
Contribution: Jessica Guynn and Jonathan Limhouse.
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