US considers breakup of Google in landmark search case

By Jody Godoy

NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. said on Tuesday it may ask a judge to force Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google to divest parts of its business, such as its Chrome browser and Android operating system, that it says are used to maintain an illegal monopoly in online search.

In a landmark case, a judge found in August that Google, which processes 90% of U.S. internet searches, had built an illegal monopoly. The Justice Department’s proposed remedies have the potential to reshape how Americans find information on the internet, while shrinking Google’s revenues and giving its competitors more room to grow.

“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” the Justice Department said.

The proposed fixes will also aim to keep Google’s past dominance from extending to the burgeoning business of artificial intelligence, prosecutors said.

The Justice Department is also considering asking for an order that would require Google to make available to rivals the indexes, data and models it uses for Google search and AI-assisted search features.

It might also ask the court to end Google’s payments to have its search engine pre-installed or set as the default on new devices.

Google has made annual payments – $26.3 billion in 2021 – to companies including Apple (NASDAQ:) and other device manufacturers to ensure that its search engine remained the default on smartphones and browsers, keeping its market share strong.

Google called the proposals “radical” and said they “go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.”

Some of the ideas in the proposal had previously garnered support from Google’s smaller competitors such as reviews site Yelp (NYSE:) and rival search engine company DuckDuckGo.

Yelp, which sued Google over search in August, says spinning off Google’s Chrome browser and AI services should be on the table. Yelp also wants Google to be prohibited from giving preference to Google’s local business pages in search results.

The Justice Department is expected to file a more detailed proposal with the court by Nov. 20. Google will have a chance to propose its own remedies by Dec. 20.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in Washington was a major win for antitrust enforcers who have brought an ambitious set of cases against Big Tech companies over the past four years.

Google has said it plans to appeal, and that its search engine has won users with its quality. It adds that it faces robust competition from Amazon (NASDAQ:) and other sites where users go directly to search for goods or services, and that users can choose other search engines as their default.