The U.S. Department of Justice has said that Google will be forced to split its business, upholding the previous administration’s proposal after a federal judge ruled last year that the company illegally abused its monopoly in the search industry. As reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times, the Justice Department in a new filing confirmed that Google will have to sell the Chrome browser. When the DOJ argued for its sale last year, it said that selling Chrome “would permanently end Google’s control over this critical search access point and allow competing search engines to gain access to the browser that is the gateway to the Internet for many users.”
The Justice Department also kept a Biden-era proposal that would have banned Google from paying companies like Apple, other smartphone makers, and Mozilla to have their search engine installed as the default on their phones and browsers. However, it withdrew an earlier proposal that would have forced Google to sell its stakes in artificial intelligence startups after Anthropic told the government it needed the company’s money to continue operating. Instead of banning AI investments entirely, the government wants to require companies to notify federal and state officials before investing in artificial intelligence. Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that Google would invest another billion dollars in Anthropic.
Google is expected to submit its own proposal for a final set of alternative remedies. In a preliminary proposal filed in December, the company said that the initial remedies proposed by the Department of Justice “go beyond” and reflect an “interventionist agenda” that “goes far beyond what the Court’s decision actually addresses – agreements with partners to distribute search.” Google has proposed to allow it to continue paying partners such as Apple and Mozilla to provide Google Search, and to allow them to enter into agreements with other partners on different platforms. For example, Apple could offer different default search engines for the iPhone and iPad. Meanwhile, browser companies could change the default search engines every 12 months.
According to The Post, the Justice Department’s filing could be an indicator of how the Trump administration will handle antitrust cases involving tech companies. It could be tough on big tech like the Biden administration, despite the fact that tech leaders support the new president and his policies. Google donated to Trump’s campaign when he ran last year, and recently stopped trying to hire employees from diverse backgrounds. The company stated that it “no longer aims to improve representation in its workforce.” Recently, the House of Representatives also subpoenaed Alphabet and its CEO Sundar Pichai in connection with communications between the company and the Biden administration regarding COVID-19.
Judge Amit Mehta, the judge who ruled that Google is a monopoly and “acted as a monopoly to maintain its monopoly,” will hear arguments from the government and the company and make a final decision in the case in April.
