First, some background. The case was first filed back in 2020. Then in August, Judge Amit Mehta ruled in favor of DOJ (and against Google), finding that Google ran its business as an illegal monopoly. Now, the DOJ has made its case for what it thinks Google should have to do in the wake of that verdict. Next, Google will propose its own set of remedies to the court. Finally, Judge Mehta will have to decide which, if any, of these remedies to enact.
So what is the DOJ proposing? Buckle up.
The government starts by calling for an end to “third party payments.” This means Google would have to stop paying the likes of Apple and Mozilla to make Google search the default engine in those companies’ browsers and devices. This is not surprising. These agreements were at the heart of the matter that led to the ruling in August.
Google would also be required to “disclose data sufficient to level the scale-based playing field it has illegally slanted”—including syndicating search results to its competitors. This basically means it would have to share its treasure trove of search data to the likes of Microsoft, OpenAI, DuckDuckGo, Brave, and on down the line.
The DOJ also argues Google should be forced to divest “control and ownership” of Chrome and Android. In the case of Android, Google’s mobile operating system that most of the phones in the world run on, Google would either have to sell it, or no longer require manufacturers, like Samsung or LG, to use its services on their devices. And if it was the latter, any deal would be subject to oversight and could still potentially result in a forced sale of Android if the government found Google’s actions insufficient.
If the other remedies are body blows, this one is more like losing a limb. Selling off Chrome and/or Android would have massive, massive consequences all across Google’s lines of businesses. It’s also worth noting that before he was tapped to oversee all of Google (and then Alphabet), Sundar Pichai ran Chrome and then Android. These are his babies.
But wait, there’s more! Google would also be prohibited from investing in or buying outright “any search or search text ad rival, search distributor, or rival query-based AI product or ads technology.” That’s big because there are a lot of companies in the AI space trying to become the search engine of the future right now. (Though it was cleared, Google was already under scrutiny for such investments in the UK, which was investigating its $2 billion investment in Anthropic.) Google could even be prohibited from using any properties it already owns and operates from favoring its own search or ad products. This would force the company to present users with choices of which search engines to use in its own hardware devices, like the Google Pixel phone, as well as on services like YouTube.
There’s still more on the DOJ’s wish list. But you get this picture. It’s a heavy hammer.
So now what?
You can think of where we are a little bit like the stage of a criminal trial when a defendant has been found guilty and a prosecutor suggests a sentence. The judge still has the final word here (at least until an inevitable appeal) and could choose to enact more lenient penalties along the lines of what Google will likely propose, or take up the Justice Department’s set of proposals in whole or in part. (He could also just go his own way.) In short, now we know what the DOJ would like to see happen. And of course the whole thing couldwill go to appeal. So, what will actually happen remains to be seen.