The US Department of Justice wants Google to sell its Chrome browser as part of its final proposal for remedy in a landmark antitrust case.
The proposal, filed on Friday afternoon, says that Google must sell Chrome immediately and fully, along with any assets or services needed to successfully complete the exempt, to a buyer approved by the plaintiffs, subject to conditions approved by the court and plaintiffs. ” It will also require Google to stop paying partners for the preferred treatment of its search engine.
The DOJ also demands that Google notify any new joint venture, collaboration or partnership with any business competing with Google in search or in search text advertising. However, the company no longer has to sell its investments in artificial intelligence, which is part of an initial set of recommendations issued by the plaintiffs last November. The company will still be expected to give notice of future AI investments.
“Through the size and unlimited power, Google has robbed consumers and businesses of a fundamental promise owed to the public – their right to choose between competitive services,” the DOJ statement accompanied the filing demands. “Google’s illegal action has created an economic Goliath, causing a havoc on the market to ensure that Google, whatever happens – always wins.”
The DOJ formally brought its case back against Google in 2020, the most important technical antitrust case since the DOJ’s long-standing fight against Microsoft in the 1990s. The lawsuit claims that Google has used competitive tactics to protect its search dominance and forging contracts that ensure that it is the standard search engine on web browsers and smartphones. As a result of the investigation into the search, the lawsuit claimed, Google can increase the auction system through which it sells advertising, adjusts and prices for advertisers and earns more revenue from it.
Google has argued that overwhelming success is looking – it has a share of almost 90 percent in the US market – from the company that offers the best search technology. It is also said that consumers can easily change their standard search engine, and that Google does face competition from Microsoft and others.
“Doj’s livestock proposals are still going miles above the court’s decision, and will harm America’s consumers, economy and national security,” Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels said in ‘NE post statement.
The case was heard in 2023, and in August 2024, the US District Judge for the District of Columbia, Amit Mehta, ruled that Google maintained an illegal monopoly, both in general search and general search text advertisements.
Much of the decision centered on the contracts that Google has with device makers and browser partners, using Google as their standard search technology. According to Mehta’s ruling, about 70 percent of search inquiries in the US occur through portals in which Google is the standard search engine. Google then shares revenue with those partners and pays out billions of dollars to them, which smaller search opponents who can’t compete with the contracts, Mehta said.