US Government Proposes Partial Breakup of Google Over Antitrust Violations

The United States government has formally proposed a partial breakup of Google, advocating for a federal judge to mandate the sale of the company’s Chrome web browser. This proposal follows findings that Google violated U.S. antitrust laws through its search business, according to a report released on Wednesday.

The proposed actions open the door to imposing significant antitrust penalties on a major tech company for the first time in a generation, marking a bold step against what has been described as Google’s illegal monopoly in search and its expanding reach into artificial intelligence. Google has indicated its intention to appeal, and the company did not provide an immediate comment on the recent filing.

This high-profile case scrutinizes whether Google’s strategies to remain the default search engine on platforms like Chrome, iPhones, and Android devices were anticompetitive, effectively stifling competition from smaller search engines.

In their court filing, antitrust enforcers suggested that spinning off Chrome, which is currently utilized on billions of devices worldwide, could help prevent the recurrence of an illegal monopoly.

«The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired,» government lawyers stated. «The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.»

The court filing also recommended banning agreements like Google’s exclusive, multi-year contracts with companies such as Apple and Samsung, which secured Google as the default search engine—the same contracts that District Judge Amit Mehta deemed instrumental in reinforcing Google’s dominance.

Furthermore, the filing proposed that Google should be required to license its U.S. search results to rival search engines for the next ten years, potentially offering other search engines an opportunity to compete more effectively with Google.

During the trial, officials expressed concerns about potential future harm and requested additional restrictions, such as allowing websites to opt out of having their data collected for Google’s artificial intelligence training.

The antitrust case against Google began in 2020, initiated under the Trump administration, and has continued under President Joe Biden. It accuses Google of employing various interconnected tactics and products to obstruct competition within the search engine market, leaving consumers with limited choices and less innovation.

The trial, which included private testimony from executives at companies like Apple and Microsoft, led Judge Mehta to conclude that Google’s practices indeed harmed competition in search, violating the Sherman Act, a key anti-monopoly law in the United States.

The Department of Justice has now laid out a variety of penalties that the U.S. District Court could impose, signaling the start of a fact-finding process that will culminate in a hearing in April, with a decision expected in 2025.

Beyond the potential Chrome divestiture, the DOJ and state officials also called for separating Google Search from its Android operating system, as well as the Google Play Store, although not necessarily suggesting a complete breakup. Many of these proposals had been previously mentioned in filings released in October.

The case against Google is reminiscent of previous major antitrust actions, such as the U.S. government’s lawsuit against Microsoft in the 1990s. In that high-profile case, Microsoft was accused of bundling its Internet Explorer browser illegally with its Windows operating system, curbing competition from browsers like Netscape Navigator.

A subsequent 2001 settlement required Microsoft to share its programming interfaces, paving the way for rival browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome itself, which later promoted Google’s search engine globally. According to Mehta, the Microsoft case provides clear parallels to the current situation with Google.

«The end result here is not dissimilar from the Microsoft court’s conclusion as to the browser market,» Mehta noted in his ruling. «Google’s distribution agreements have constrained the query volumes of its rivals, thereby inoculating Google against any genuine competitive threat.»

This ongoing legal battle coincides with another antitrust case against Google, involving its advertising technology empire, which is currently underway in Virginia.

This article has been updated to reflect new developments and additional information.