The US Department of Justice (DOJ) wants Google to sell its browser as part of the resolution to the case of historical antimonopoly. The proposal indicates that Chrome must “quickly and completely detach from the company, together with the necessary assets or services to successfully complete the divestment of an approved buyer, subject to the terms that the Court and the plaintiffs approve.” He also demands that Mountain View giant stop paying its partners for preferred treatment of its search engine.
Similarly, Google should notify the DOJ about any new collaboration or association with any company that competes with it in the search or in search text ads. However, the company will no longer have to part with its investments in artificial intelligence, which was part of an initial set of recommendations issued by the plaintiffs last November. But his obligation to notify future investments in AI will continue.
“Through its enormous size and unlimited power, Google has stripped consumers and companies of a fundamental promise that are due to the public: the right to choose between competitors,” says the DOJ statement that accompanies the presentation. He points out that “Google’s illegal behavior has created an economic giant that wreaks havoc on the market to ensure that, whatever happens, always win.”
The DOJ sued Google in 2020
This was the case of the most important technological antimonopoly since the long battle of the DOJ against Microsoft in the 1990s. The demand claimed that Google used anti -competitive tactics to protect their domain from searches and forge contracts that ensure to be the predetermined search engine in web browsers and smartphones. Thanks to its domain of searches, Google can adjust the auction system through which you sell ads and increase prices for advertisers, which obtains more income.
Google has argued that its success in searches, almost 90% of the total US market account is because it offers the best search technology. He also says that consumers can easily change their predetermined search engine and that Google faces Microsoft competition and others. “The proposals of the DOJ go beyond the Court’s decision and would harm consumers, the National Security of the United States,” said Google Spokesman Peter Schottenfels, in a statement sent by email to Wired.
The case came to trial in 2023, and in August 2024 the US district judge of the Columbia district, Amit Mehta, ruled that Google has maintained an illegal monopoly, both in the website and in the general search text ads.
Much of the sentence focused on the contracts that Google has with manufacturers of associated devices and browsers, who use Google as predetermined search technology. According to Mehta’s judgment, about 70% of the US search consultations are held through portals in which Google is the predetermined search engine. “The company shares the income with these partners, paying them billions of dollars, which discourages the smallest rivals who cannot compete with those contracts,” said Mehta.
Google warns that the forced sale of Chrome would affect the experience of millions of users, would compromise the US technological leadership and fragment key products such as its search engine.
There is an option: say goodbye to Chrome
Last November, government lawyers presented Mehta a detailed plan that included a series of recommendations on the best way to reduce Google’s domain in the US searches market. The recommendations included the separation of Chrome, which was detached from Android and put an end to its search association with Apple, in which Apple receives billions of dollars each year for your safari browser to use the search for Google. Another point is that competitors freely accessed the giant data, both for search and ads“that provide Google a continuous advantage for their exclusive behavior.”
Kent Walker, president of Global Affairs of Google and its legal director, described the November proposal as “Radical Interventionist Program” that “would endanger the security and privacy of millions of Americans” and drown innovation. Walker said that “it would cool the investment in artificial intelligence, perhaps the most important innovation in which Google plays an outstanding role.” The Big Tech It increasingly offers more results based on AI at the top of its search pages, although sometimes the results are unequal.
#United #States #insists #Google #sell #Chrome
