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TechNov 21, 2024

Justice Department Floats Google Divestment of Chrome After Ruling Tech Giant’s Search Chokehold a Monopoly

Antitrust Pressure

Daniel Schoester

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What goes around comes around — a lesson learned the hard way by Google. After years of dominating search while bullying large and small publishers, Wednesday’s ferocious Justice Department ruling ordered the $2T “monopolist” to sell Chrome and potentially Android, marking the most significant tech breakup in a quarter century.

With control over Chrome, Android, and OpenAI rival Anthropic, the DOJ argues Google “maintain[s] its [search] monopoly” through anti-competitive distribution agreements that are “preventing rivals from achieving scale.”
In 2021 alone, Google paid $26.3B to Apple, Mozilla, and Samsung for default search placements — reinforcing its distribution while blocking competitors from “valuable queries and interaction data.”

Clearing search history: Google must respond by Dec. 20, with arguments expected in the spring and a final ruling by late summer. This landmark case sets a precedent for other pending antitrust suits against Apple, Amazon, and Meta. The DOJ’s proposal aims to “unleash significant opportunity for existing competitors and innovative technologies,” especially as AI becomes the next battleground for search competition. However, it’s hard to tell whether these actions, brought by the DOJ and FTC, will continue under Trump —or even be enforced as they are.