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Google parent company Alphabet’s (GOOGL-5.44%) shares fell over 5% during mid-day trading on Thursday amid pressure on Google to sell its Chrome web browser.
The Department of Justice is seeking Google’s sale of Chrome, it said Wednesday, as the government looks for ways to break up the search engine giant’s dominance.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google had monopolized the online search engine market, violating antitrust laws. Judge Amit Mehta found that Google had pushed out its search competitors, including Microsoft’s (MSFT-0.22%) Bing and DuckDuckGo. The Justice Department sued Google in 2020 for allegedly monopolizing the digital search market.
“Google’s dominance has gone unchallenged for well over a decade,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.”
In a court filing in October, the Justice Department said it would seek ways to prevent and restrain Google from current and future search market dominance. The department said it was “considering behavioral and structural remedies” to prevent the tech giant “from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features—including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence—over rivals or new entrants.”
In its final judgment on Wednesday, the court said, “Google must divest Chrome, which has ‘fortified [Google’s] dominance,’ so that rivals may pursue distribution partnerships that this ‘realit[y] of control,’ today prevents.”
Google’s Android business is also under scrutiny by the Justice Department, and the government is suggesting that Google be prevented from entering paid agreements to be the de-facto search engine on smartphones and web browsers for third parties such as Apple (AAPL+0.19%).
Alphabet shares are up 20% so far this year.