US wants Google to sell Chrome to fix web search monopoly

The US Justice Department (DOJ) and a group of states have officially asked a federal court to force Google to sell its popular Chrome browser. This would probably change the internet as we know it.

The request is only natural after Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia found in August that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search.

In October, the DOJ already indicated that it was considering a possible breakup of Google as an antitrust remedy.

Now, both the agency and a group of US states that brought the original antitrust case in 2020 have doubled down on their request to force Google to sell the Chrome browser. If the judge agrees, this will mean huge problems for the tech giant.

Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world with an estimated 67% of the global market. Even if, according to Bloomberg, Chrome could be sold for as much as $20 billion, surely that’d be less than what the browser is bringing Google every year.

Besides, the US government also wants Google to choose to either sell Android – its smartphone OS – or bar the firm from making its services mandatory on phones that use Android to operate.

Finally, the plaintiffs also want the judge to stop Google from entering into paid agreements with Apple and others to be the default search engine on smartphones and in browsers.

Some legal experts even say that the latter point is key and that the threat of breaking up Google could be a tool to pressure the tech giant into doing away with certain exclusive agreements such as the deal with Apple.

Judge Mehta signaled this very idea back in August when he mentioned the “power of the default.”

“The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired. The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages,” says the filing (PDF).

Ken Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, called the government’s proposal “extreme” in a blog post.

Google has to file its own suggestions for fixing the search monopoly by December 20th, and both sides can update their requests before the spring when Mehta is expected to hear the arguments. His ruling is expected by the end of the summer.

All eyes in the tech world are on the case. If the judge adopts the proposals, they will also set the tone for other antitrust cases against tech giants such as Amazon, Apple, and Meta.