The DOJ asked that Google’s parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) to sell off its Chrome browser, and that the company choose either to fully divest its Android mobile operating system to a new buyer or to adopt limits on that business. Any remedies would run for 10 years.
The Android remedies are intended to “blunt” Google’s ability to get preferential treatment for its search engine and ads businesses, the filing said. They would likely constrain Google from requiring mobile devices that run on Android to include its search engine or AI products by default.
Jeffrey Shinder, an antitrust lawyer and co-founder of Shinder Cantor Lerner, said there’s still a long way to go before Google’s consequences are known.
“With Chrome’s 61% share of web browser traffic, the DOJ request for this form of structural relief has sound mooring in the underlying theory of competitive harm,” Shinder told Yahoo Finance. “That said, this is going to face significant hurdles including vigorous opposition from Google, the need to find a suitable buyer without antitrust baggage of its own, and the incoming administration’s antitrust team might have something to say about these issues.”
DOJ outlined a framework of options last month, but the filing Wednesday was a lot more specific about what it wants to happen.
DOJ is asking for Google’s empire to be broken up. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) ·NurPhoto via Getty Images
It will now be up to District of Columbia District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who sided with the DOJ’s monopoly argument, to decide what should happen next in a separate “remedies” phase of the trial that will likely start in 2025.
A DOJ breakup request would be the latest of many aggressive signals sent to the tech world during a wide-ranging effort by the Biden administration to rein in what it views as anticompetitive behavior across a number of industries.
The administration has already alleged anticompetitive conduct against tech giants Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN), and against Google in a second case targeting its online advertising technology business. Its antitrust enforcers also continued competition claims against Facebook (META) and claimed that Microsoft’s acquisition of gaming giant Activision Blizzard would create a gaming market monopoly.
“The DOJ continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, told Yahoo Finance in a Tuesday email.
“The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed.”
Some legal experts don’t expect the crackdown to let up. After all, it was Trump’s DOJ that initiated the antitrust suit against Google after it concluded the company used illegal tactics to monopolize search.
But Trump in October also suggested that Google’s punishment could be accomplished without forcing it to sell off parts of its empire.
He described Google’s search engine as “rigged” and expressed concern that consequences for Google in the case could favor China.
The proposal to carve up Google is the first step from the Justice Department to break apart a tech empire since it tried to do so more than two decades ago with Microsoft (MSFT).
That case resulted in a 2002 settlement that opened the door to broader competition in the internet browser software market.
Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president for search platform DuckDuckGo (DDG) said after the filing that the government’s proposal would “unleash a new era of innovation, investment, and competition.”
This week, DDG asked the European Union’s antitrust regulator to probe Google’s compliance with the bloc’s antitrust law, the Digital Markets Act.
A DOJ request to divest part of Google’s empire isn’t surprising, according to Vanderbilt Law School associate dean for research Rebecca Allensworth, because “it makes sense to ask for more than you are going to get.”
But what she expects the judge to actually approve is data sharing as opposed to a spin-off of Chrome.
“We don’t know what the judge is going to impose yet,” she told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday.
Jean-Paul Schmetz, chief of ads for search engine provider Brave, said a spin-off of Chrome is not likely to achieve the government’s goals.
“My opinion is that if you have a browser — Safari, Firefox, Brave, whatever — and you send traffic to Google, then you should be compensated in a nondiscriminatory manner,” Schmetz said.
“At the moment,” Schmetz added, “you only get money if you promise to Google that you’re not going to compete against them.”
Judge Amit Mehta, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) ·Mark Wilson via Getty Images
Judge Mehta has scheduled a remedies hearing to take place in April, and he has previously said he plans to issue a final ruling by August 2025.
Google has promised to appeal. And Judge Mehta could hold off on any orders to alter Google’s behavior while it challenges his ruling in D.C.’s Circuit Court of Appeals.
The judge would lose the right to impose remedies if Google is found not to have broken the law on appeal.
And even if Google fails and is ordered to change its behavior, Judge Mehta could later adjust his orders to better ensure competition is restored.
What is not yet known is how Trump’s term, which starts Jan. 20, could alter how this case is resolved.
Google is “going to appeal this case,” former Federal Trade Commission chief technologist Neil Chilson told Yahoo Finance. “We are probably pretty far from any total final resolution.”
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