The U.S. Department of Justice demands Google revamp: Sell Chrome, share data
The Guardian reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is demanding that Google sell the Chrome browser and provide data to competitors to end its monopoly on the Internet search market.
The U.S. Department of Justice is petitioning the court to force Google to sell the Chrome browser and provide data and search results to competitors. According to "The Guardian," such actions aim to end Google's monopoly in the Internet search market.
Will Chrome be sold?
Prosecutors argue that these changes will subject Google to strict regulation for 10 years, meaning supervision by the same federal court in Washington that found the company maintains an illegal monopoly in online search and advertising. Google controls about 90% of the Internet search market.
"The Guardian" reports that the U.S. Department of Justice also demands that Google be barred from re-entering the browser market for five years. It must sell the Android operating system if other measures do not restore competition. The Department also wants to prohibit Google from investing in competing search engines, AI query-based products, and advertising technologies.
Google is expected to present its proposals in December, and a trial in this matter is scheduled for April at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.
"Illegal monopoly" case against Google: a groundbreaking verdict
A U.S. court ruled that Google holds an illegal search monopoly. The tech giant spent billions over the years to become the default Internet search engine, but the court ruled that this violated antitrust law.
"The court concluded: Google is a monopolist and acted as a monopolist to maintain its monopoly," stated Judge Amit Mehta from Washington. Google controls about 90% of the online search market and 95% of smartphones. Mehta noted that in 2021, Google spent over $35 billion CAD to secure its dominant share of the Internet browser market.
Gigantic fine for Google
In September, the European Court of Justice upheld a $3.5 billion CAD fine imposed on Google for abusing its dominant position by favouring its product comparison service.
In June 2017, the European Commission found that in the European market, Google favoured the results of its product comparison service on its general search results page over those of competing online comparison sites.
Google presented the search results of its product comparison service prominently and highlighted them in "boxes" with eye-catching visual and text information. In contrast, search results from competing comparison sites appeared only as ordinary general results, visible as blue links.
