The US Department of Justice’s top antitrust officials will ask a judge to enforce the sale of the Chrome browser, reports Bloomberg. This follows a major ruling in August that found Google had acted illegally to stifle competition and retain its monopoly on online search and advertising.
Antitrust officials, alongside several US states that have joined the case, will ask federal judge Amit Mehta to order Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, to sell off Chrome, with markets already scrambling to work out what the browser may be worth. In addition to this, the DOJ is said to be seeking further measures relating to Google’s Android OS, AI technologies, and data licensing (ie, allowing third parties and advertisers to access Google’s own search engine data).
It is up to the court to make a ruling but, should the judge accept the DOJ’s recommendations, this would be the biggest crackdown on a technology company in history. It is also possible that the judge may decide a sale is not necessary if certain other conditions are met. Finally, there’s the question of who could even buy it: The companies that have the money to do so, such as Amazon or even Microsoft, might find a Chrome acquisition brings more scrutiny on their own fiefdoms than it’s worth.
Chrome is the most popular internet browser in the world (web tracker Similarweb puts its current global market share at 64.61%), and integrated fully with Google’s lucrative ads business. It tracks users, personalises recommendations, and directs users towards other Google products such as GSuite and Gemini. It is impossible to overstate how important it is to Google’s business, and unsurprisingly Google is going to fight this tooth-and-nail.
The DOJ “continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs. “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.”
Perhaps Google should give thanks this is the battle it may be fighting: The same report claims that the DOJ decided not to go for the most severe remedy, which would have been forcing it to spin off Android. But the DOJ will apparently recommend that Google separate-out Android from its other products such as the Google Play store.
Needless to say there are some twisty paths to follow. Judge Mehta’s August ruling that Google broke antitrust laws is still subject to appeal by Google, which it is near-certain to do. At the same time, the judge has scheduled a hearing for April 2025 to hear proposed remedies to Google’s behaviour, and a final ruling is pencilled in for August 2025. But something tells me the timeline won’t be that cut-and-dried.
The DOJ has not commented on the report.
