The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that it may recommend dismantling Google's de facto monopoly by separating its search business from its Android operating system, Chrome web browser, and Google Play app store.
According to a court filing on Tuesday, Google may face both “behavioral and structural remedies” to prevent the company from abusing its ecosystem for unfair competitive advantage. The DOJ argues that the tech giant’s behavior has already caused “interlocking and pernicious harms” to users and that restoring competition in the search engine market is essential.
”Google’s unlawful behavior has enabled it to accumulate and use data at the expense of rivals,” the DOJ stated. “As a result, plaintiffs are considering remedies that would prohibit Google from using or retaining data that cannot be effectively shared with others due to privacy concerns,” it added, arguing that “genuine privacy concerns” must be distinguished from “pretextual arguments” meant to sustain its dominant position.
This move follows a federal judge's ruling in August that Google had violated US antitrust laws.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit Mehta said, noting that the company paid billions of dollars to device manufacturers to secure its position as the default search engine on smartphones and browsers.
The DOJ contends that because Google has been found in violation of antitrust regulations, remedies for those offenses should “unfetter markets from Google’s exclusionary conduct, remove barriers to competition, deny Google the fruits of its statutory violations, and prevent Google from monopolizing these markets and related markets in the future.”
Google has responded by labeling the government's plan “radical,” arguing in a blog post on Wednesday that it would worsen customer experience and significantly impact “American competitiveness.”
“Splitting off Chrome or Android would break them,” Google stated. “Billions of people get online thanks to Chrome and Android existing as free products. Few companies would have the ability or incentive to keep them open source or to invest in them at the same level we do.”
The case will continue to unfold over the coming months, with the DOJ expected to submit more detailed proposals by November 20 and Google scheduled to respond by December 20.
It remains unclear what consequences Google and its parent company, Alphabet, will face. In the 1990s, the US government attempted to break up Microsoft over its dominance of the nascent software market, but the company appealed the ruling, and the DOJ eventually dropped the case.
Google is also facing a separate antitrust case brought by DOJ attorneys and 17 states, alleging that its advertising business is anticompetitive. Additionally, the company has been fined billions of euros in monopoly cases in the EU. Other tech giants, including Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Apple, have also been sued by federal antitrust regulators for allegedly operating unlawful monopolies.
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