Will a Federal judge Break Up Google?
Last summer, a federal judge, Amit P. Mehta, delivered a landmark ruling that found Google had illegally dominated online search.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” he wrote.
Now, Judge Mehta has to figure out how to fix Google’s monopoly. The Justice Department wants to force Google to sell its Chrome web browser. This would cut off the source of data it uses to improve internet search. The department also wants to make the Silicon Valley giant hand over some of its most precious data to rivals, which could help their competing products.
In contrast, Google has asked the judge to only slightly restrict its ability to make deals to give its search engine prime placement on browsers and in smartphones.
The outcome could reshape the $1.86 trillion company, which has become synonymous with how people look for information online. Google faces mounting challenges including the possibility of a breakup after a federal judge ruled Thursday that it illegally maintained its monopoly on some ad technologies. This puts Google in its most vulnerable position ever since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in 1998. Google’s ability to compete against OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta could be hampered by any restrictions, as search is increasingly powered with A.I. tools that can summarize research and offer humanlike guidance.
“The D.O.J.’s been very aggressive in what they’ve asked for,” said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who studies antitrust. “They’ve basically asked for the moon.” It’s been even longer since a federal government has successfully divided a company based on its dominance. The last time was New Year’s Day 1984, when AT&T cleaved itself into eight companies as part of an antitrust settlement reached with the Justice Department two years earlier.
Judge Mehta’s decision could influence other tech antitrust cases. Since 2020, the Justice Department twice accused Google of breaking antitrust laws and has sued Apple for making users find it difficult to ditch their iPhones. The Justice Department’s spokeswoman declined to comment. The case was tried in 2023, under the Biden administration. They demanded that Google should be broken up. The Trump administration has continued to take an aggressive stance against the tech giants. Google paid those companies $26.3 billion in 2021, the court heard during the trial.
Government lawyers argued at the trial that the deals created a powerful cycle to benefit Google. Judge Mehta agreed with the government in August and ruled that Google had broken the law. He is expected order the remedies by the end the summer. The government argued that forcing Google into selling Chrome would deny it a valuable source for traffic to its search engine. If the company spun off the browser, that prime placement would not be guaranteed. If the company spun off the browser, that prime placement would not be guaranteed.
The Justice Department also said it might want to force Google to spin off Android, the smartphone operating system, if the court’s actions failed to improve competition among search engines.
In addition, the government asked the judge to take steps that would give Google’s competitors a more direct boost. According to the proposal, search engine like DuckDuckGo or Microsoft’s Bing would be able to take Google’s ads and search results and display them directly for their users. Google would also have to hand over data about what terms people search for and what websites they click, which rivals could use to improve their own systems.
Google has argued that not much needs to change. It told Judge Mehta it should be allowed to continue paying Apple and other companies for its search engine in order to get top placement. It also said that browser makers should be able to cancel their Google deals once a year. Google’s proposal would give smartphone manufacturers more freedom to choose which Google apps they want to install on their phones. Under Google’s proposal, smartphone manufacturers would have more freedom to decide what Google apps to install on their phones.
The hearing is expected to feature testimony from Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, as well as executives from Google’s partners, like Apple and Mozilla.
Rivals are watching. Kamyl Bazbaz, the senior vice president of public affairs for DuckDuckGo, said it was taking a wait-and-see approach, since Google has promised to appeal Judge Mehta’s ruling.
“There isn’t a single thing to do right now to actually prepare, besides getting ready to watch the case really closely,” Mr. Bazbaz said. He said that the decision could affect “nothing but how everyone uses the internet.”
