The Justice Department is reportedly considering a push for a historic breakup of Google’s business empire after a federal judge ruled the Big Tech giant has an illegal monopoly over online search.
DOJ attorneys could ask Judge Amit Mehta to order Google to sell portions of its business – with potential candidates for divestment including its Android operating system, Chrome web browser and advertising platform AdWords, Bloomberg reported.
A potential sell-off of Android – the world’s most widely-used operating system – has generated the most discussion among the DOJ attorneys crafting the agency’s plan, the outlet said, citing sources with knowledge of the agency’s discussions.
The feds are also weighing “less severe” options, such as requiring Google to share data with rival search engines such as DuckDuckGo and Microsoft’s Bing.
They could also seek to impose restrictions on Google’s artificial intelligence products to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage. For example, the DOJ could ask Mehta to block Google from requiring companies to allow it to “scrape” their content in exchange for appearing in search results.
In a landmark ruling last week, Mehta determined that Google is a “monopolist” that has relied on billions of dollars in payments to partners like Apple, Samsung & AT&T – including $26.3 billion in 2021 alone – to ensure its search engine is enabled by default on most smartphones.
Mehta ruled Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in two markets – general search services and general text advertising — and found the default search engine deals “are exclusive and have anticompetitive effects.”
The DOJ is expected to ask Mehta to block Google from offering default deals in the future.
Google shares fell more than 1% in after-hours trading Tuesday.
A proposal to break up Google would be the first of its kind by the feds in more than 20 years. The DOJ won a major antitrust case against Microsoft but later abandoned a push to break up the company in 2001.
The DOJ will outline its proposed remedies to tackle Google’s monopoly during the second set of court proceedings related to the antitrust case, which are slated to kick off in September.
Google declined to comment. The DOJ could not immediately be reached for comment.
Google has already indicated that it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling.
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” the company’s president of global affairs Kent Walker said in a statement last week.
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