U.S. asks judge to break up Google
The Justice Department said Monday that the best way to address Google 's monopoly in internet search was to break up the $1.81 trillion company, kicking off a three-week hearing that could reshape the technology giant and alter the power players in Silicon Valley.
Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in August that Google had broken antitrust laws to maintain its dominance in online search. He is now hearing arguments from the government and the company over how to best fix Google's monopoly and is expected to order those measures, referred to as 'remedies,' by the end of the summer.
In an opening statement in the hearing Monday, the government said Mehta should force Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser, which drives users to its search engine. Government lawyers also said the company should take steps to give competitors a leg up if the court wants to restore competition to the moribund market for online search.
Google's lawyers countered that Mehta should narrowly target his remedies. Specifically, they said, the court should look only at a group of deals that the company makes with Apple, Mozilla, Samsung and others to be the search engine that automatically appears in web browsers and smartphones. These deals were at the heart of the government's case against the company.
Google's proposal 'directly responds to this court's legal determinations, but it also does much more,' said John Schmidtlein, Google's lead trial lawyer.
The outcome in the case, U.S. v. Google, could drastically change the Silicon Valley behemoth. Google faces mounting challenges, including a breakup of its ad technology business after a different federal judge ruled last week that the company held a monopoly over some of the tools that websites use to sell open ad space. In 2023, Google also lost an antitrust suit brought by the maker of the video game Fortnite, which accused the tech giant of violating competition laws with its Play app store.
The legal troubles could hurt Google as it battles OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta to lead a new era of artificial intelligence. Google has increasingly woven AI into its search. But the Justice Department has told Mehta he should make sure Google cannot parlay its search monopoly into similar dominance in AI.
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