Google may be forced to sell its Chrome browser and Android operating system business as U.S. regulators seek court action over what they see as the tech giant’s illegal monopoly on online search.
The divestment request comes after a judge found in August that Google, which processes 90% of U.S. internet searches, had established an unlawful dominance.
Ministry of Justice It could also ask a court to stop Google from paying for its search engine to be pre-installed or set as the default on new devices.
Google pays companies including Apple and other device makers a year ($26.3 billion in 2021) to ensure its search engine remains the default on smartphones and browsers and maintains high market share. I’m going.
The Justice Department’s proposed bailout could change the way Americans find information on the internet, while shrinking Google’s revenue and giving competitors room to grow.
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“To fully redress these damages, we need to not only end Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensure that Google no longer controls distribution tomorrow,” the Justice Department said.
Prosecutors say the amendments are also aimed at ensuring that Google’s past dominance extends to its fast-growing artificial intelligence business.
Google, which plans to appeal, said in a post on its company blog that the proposal is “radical” and “goes far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.”
Google claims its search engine wins users for its quality, adding that it faces stiff competition from Amazon and other sites and users can choose other search engines as their default. .
The world’s fourth largest company with a market capitalization of over $2 trillion. alphabet Legal pressure from competitors and antitrust authorities is increasing.
A U.S. judge ruled Monday in a separate case that Google must open up its lucrative Play app store to more competition, including by making Android apps available from rival sources. I put it down. Google is also fighting a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to break up its web advertising business.
The Justice Department has said that as part of efforts to prevent Google from extending its dominance over AI, it may seek to provide its competitors with the indexes, data and models used in Google Search and its AI-assisted search capabilities. Ta.
Other orders sought by prosecutors include restricting Google from entering into agreements that restrict access to the web content of other AI competitors and restricting Google from allowing websites to use its own content to train AI models. This includes allowing you to opt out of.
Google said AI-related proposals could suffocate the field.
“There are huge risks for governments to scale this important industry, distorting investment, distorting incentives and discouraging new business models, but we need to encourage investment. The timing is right,” Google said.
Google split bidding
The Justice Department is expected to submit a more detailed proposal to the court by November 20th, and Google will have the opportunity to propose its own remedies by December 20th.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in Washington was a major victory for antitrust enforcement officials, who have filed a series of ambitious lawsuits against Big Tech companies over the past four years.
America is also suing meta platform, They claim that Amazon.com and Apple illegally maintain monopolies.
Some of the ideas in the Justice Department’s proposal to break up Google had previously garnered support from smaller Google competitors, including review site Yelp and rival search engine company DuckDuckGo.
Yelp, which sued Google over search in August, argues that spinoffs of Google’s Chrome browser and AI services should be on the table. Yelp also wants to prohibit Google from prioritizing local business pages in search results.
In Europe, despite pressure to speed up the process, Google has said directly that it is unlikely to receive a dissolution order from EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager before she leaves office next month, citing the complexity of the case. A person familiar with the matter said. Reuters.
Reuters reported last month that Vestager was considering an order to halt anti-competitive practices in Google’s ad tech business, but would not issue a breakup order as he had previously warned.
Earlier this year, Google proposed selling its ad marketplace AdX to end an EU antitrust probe, but European publishers rejected the offer as insufficient, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. An official told Reuters.
- Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara
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