The US says that they may ask a judge to force Alphabet’s Google to divest some parts of its business including Chrome browsers and Android operating system.
Now that Judge Amit Mehta has found that Google is a monopolist, lawyers for the Department of Justice are looking to propose solutions to correct the company’s illegal behavior and restore competition to the market when it comes to search engines.
They released a 32-page filing and in that they state that they are considering both “behavioral and structural remedies.”
This covers everything from applying a consent decree to keep an eye on the behavior of the company to forcing Google to divest parts of its business. These businesses include Chrome, Android, or Google Play.
“Similarly, Plaintiffs are considering behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google 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.”
The first problem listed there is the control of Google over its search distribution. Google pays an exorbitant amount of money to its partners like Apple to stay the default search engine on platforms like Apple’s iPhone.
To this, the lawyers at DOJ say, “Rivals cannot compete for these distribution channels because Google’s monopoly-funded revenue share payments disincentivize its partners from diverting queries to Google’s rivals.”
The DOJ is also considering fixes that can affect user behavior like requiring “Google to provide support for educational-awareness campaigns that would enhance the ability of users to choose the general search engine that suits them best.”
Google also responded to this on its blog. The company claims that the proposed framework “goes well beyond the legal scope of the Court’s decision about Search distribution contracts,” and that “splitting off Chrome or Android would break them.”
They also said that billions of people get online thanks to Chrome and Android existing as free products. According to them, only a “few companies would have the ability or incentive to keep them open source, or to invest in them at the same level we do.”
