The US government has said it may ask a judge to force Alphabet’s Google to divest parts of its business, such as its Chrome browser and Android operating system, in order to eliminate its monopoly in online search.
In a landmark case in August 2024, the US district court found Google liable for maintaining monopolies in US general search services and US general search text advertising.
Specifically, the court found two violations as a result of Google’s illegal maintenance of monopolies in those two separate markets.
With Amit Mehta, the judge who presided over the case, branding the tech giant a “monopolist”, the Department of Justice has now said it is “considering behavioural and structural remedies” to end Google’s monopoly in search.
In its court filing on Tuesday, the department identified four areas that its remedies framework for Google needed to address: search distribution and revenue sharing; generation and display of search results; advertising scale and monetisation; and gathering and use of data.
These remedies could reshape how those in the US find information on the internet while shrinking Google’s revenues and giving its competitors more room to grow.
The court filing said: “For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little-to-no incentive to compete for users.
“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow.”
Currently, Google handles more than 90% of online queries. According to an article in Reuters, Mehta ruled that Google has spent billions of dollars on exclusive deals with companies including Apple and other device manufacturers to ensure that its search engine remained the default on smartphones and browsers, keeping its market share strong.
The proposed remedies will also aim to keep Google’s past dominance from extending to the burgeoning business of AI, prosecutors said.
In a corporate blog post, Google said it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling, calling the proposals “radical” and saying they “go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case”.
Mehta has outlined a timeline for a trial on the proposed remedies in April 2025 and plans to issue a decision by August 2025.
Google has been facing increasing regulatory pressure on both sides of the Atlantic. Just on 7 October a Californian judge ordered the company to open its Android operating system to rivals, allowing them to create their own app marketplaces and payment systems to compete with Google Play.
In Europe, over the past few years Google has received three EU antitrust fines, which amount to €8.25bn.
Last month, the tech giant lost its case against a €2.42bn fine levied in 2017 for using its own price comparison shopping service to gain an unfair advantage over smaller European rivals.
Brussels, which also has an open case against Google for its dominance in the adtech market, has also threatened to break up the company as the only viable solution to competition concerns.
