The Department of Justice is reportedly considering pushing for a historic breakup of Google’s business empire after a federal court ruled that the tech giant operated an illegal monopoly on online search.
Justice Department lawyers could ask Judge Amit Mehta to order Google to sell off parts of its business, including its Android operating system, Chrome web browser and advertising platform AdWords. Bloomberg reported.
The potential sale of Android, the world’s most widely used operating system, is generating the most discussion among Justice Department lawyers developing the department’s plans, the outlet reported, citing sources familiar with the Justice Department discussions.
The federal government is also considering “less strict” options, such as forcing Google to share data with rival search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Microsoft’s Bing.
The Justice Department could also consider imposing limits on Google’s artificial intelligence products to prevent the company from gaining an unfair advantage. For example, the Justice Department could ask Mehta to block Google from requiring companies to allow “scraping” their content in exchange for appearing in search results.
In a landmark ruling last week, Judge Mehta found that Google is a “monopoly” that relies on paying billions of dollars (including $26.3 billion in 2021 alone) to partners such as Apple, Samsung and AT&T to ensure its search engine is enabled by default on most smartphones.
Judge Mehta found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in two markets: general search services and general text advertising, and ruled that its default search engine agreements had an “exclusionary and anticompetitive effect.”
The Justice Department is expected to ask Mehta to block Google from making future default proposals.
Google shares fell more than 1% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
A Google breakup would be the first proposed by the federal government in more than two decades. The Justice Department abandoned efforts to break up Microsoft in 2001 after winning a major antitrust lawsuit against the company.
The Justice Department is expected to outline proposed remedies to challenge Google’s monopoly in a second hearing in the antitrust case, scheduled to begin in September.
Google declined to comment, and the Department of Justice could not immediately be reached for comment.
Google has already said it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling.
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but it shouldn’t be allowed to make it so easy to use,” Kent Walker, the company’s president of global affairs, said in a statement last week.
