An analysis of the Department of Justice's plan to end Google's search monopoly
The US Department of Justice is asking Google to sell its Chrome browser under the pretext of ending its market monopoly. This stance of asking Google to hand over its main products is very painful for Google, but what the Department of Justice is really asking for is something much bigger than Chrome, and technology media The Verge introduces experts' opinions on the Department of Justice's intentions.
Breaking down the DOJ's plan to end Google's search monopoly - The Verge
In 2020, the Department of Justice sued Google for maintaining an illegal monopoly in the search and search advertising markets. In this case, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that 'Google has a monopoly in general search and text advertising,' and based on this, the Department of Justice proposed breaking up Google's business.
US Department of Justice demands Google sell Chrome, Google counters, 'This goes far beyond the court's decision' - GIGAZINE
One of the proposed splits is the sale of Chrome, which The Verge reports is intended to not only take Chrome out of Google's hands, but also to untangle the threads of all the services that are so tightly entangled with it.
For example, the Justice Department has told Google that it 'may not grant its search, advertising, or AI products priority access to Android or other Google-owned services,' meaning it cannot set Chrome as the default browser on Android or pre-install its AI 'Gemini.'
Additionally, the Justice Department is asking Google to give up its 'search data.' The Justice Department says Google has so much data about the words users type into its search box that no other company can match, giving it little competitive pressure to develop products based on search queries.
While this could be described as the result of corporate efforts, the Department of Justice considers it a 'monopoly' and requires that search engines provide search query and website rankings to competitors for a small fee. 'This allows rival search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo to improve their products very quickly,' the Department of Justice said.
Bloomberg analyst Mandeep Singh pointed out that 'Chrome is not just a tool to access search data, but the search data itself is what is most powerful for Google. If Google's search index were available to everyone, it could intensify competition in search. Google could make some profits by buying and selling data, but it would be significantly less than it would make if it had a monopoly, and it could reduce search revenue by up to 10%.'
While it may seem like a stretch for a government to order a company to release its most valuable data, Shubha Ghosh of the Syracuse University Intellectual Property Law Institute says it's not impossible. 'Google didn't create the data, so it's not protected by intellectual property rights,' he says. 'It's like asking about ownership of news, just like the facts themselves don't give rise to property rights or anything like that.'
Google has responded to these proposals, arguing that 'there are privacy issues as personal search queries would be made public' and that 'putting it under the supervision of an agency with enormous power would hinder technological development,' and has pointed out that the Department of Justice is overinterpreting the court's ruling.
Mozilla, which develops Firefox and relies heavily on payments from Google, warned that the Justice Department's proposals could have an unnecessary effect on browser competition, saying they would do more harm than good to competition. Meanwhile, DuckDuckGo's developers have said they welcomed some of the reforms, saying they could help boost advertising revenue as other search engines grow in size.
Google's response is expected to be finalized after the trial in April 2025. It's possible that the Department of Justice will only accept part of Google's proposal, which could still cut billions of dollars from Google. As a last resort, the Department of Justice may ask for the sale of the Android OS.
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