US regulators want a federal judge break Google to prevent the company from continuing to crush competition through its dominant search engine after a court ruled it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the past decade.
The proposed breakup is contained in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice, calling on Google to sell its industry-leading Chrome web browser and impose restrictions intended to prevent its Android smartphone software from promoting its search engine.
The recommended sanctions underscore the extent to which regulators operating under President Biden believe Google should be punished following an August ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta that stigmatized Google. as a monopolist. Justice Department policymakers who will inherit the case after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year may not be so strident. Washington court hearings on Google’s sanction are expected to begin in April, and Mehta hopes to issue his final decision before Labor Day.
If Mehta accepts the Justice Department’s recommendations, Google will almost certainly appeal the sanctions, prolonging a legal battle that has lasted for more than four years.
In addition to seeking a Chrome spinoff and rounding up Android software, the Justice Department wants the judge to bar Google from making multibillion-dollar deals to lock its dominant search engine as the default option on the iPhone and other Apple devices.
Regulators also want Google to share the data it collects from user queries with its competitors, giving them a better chance of competing with the tech giant.
The measures, if ordered, threaten to upend a company expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year — a money-making machine that has given Google parent Alphabet Inc. a run for its money.
“The playing field is not level due to Google’s behavior, and Google’s standing reflects the ill-gotten gains of an illegally acquired advantage,” the Justice Department said in its recommendations. “The remedy must fill this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.”
It’s still possible that the Justice Department will tone down attempts to break up Google, especially if Trump takes the widely expected step of replacing Jonathan Kanter, who was appointed by Biden to oversee the agency’s antitrust division.
Although the case targeting Google was initially filed in the final months of Trump’s first term, Kanter oversaw the high-profile trial that resulted in Mehta’s decision against Google. Working in tandem with Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, Kanter took a tough stance against big tech, sparking other crackdowns on industrial powerhouses like Apple and discouraging the conclusion of trade agreements over the past four years.
Trump recently expressed fears that a split could destroy Google, but did not specify what alternative sanctions he might have in mind. “What you can do without breaking it is make sure it’s fairer,” Trump said last month. Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman who Trump nominated to be the next U.S. attorney general, has previously called for the breakup of big tech companies.
Gaetz, a Trump firebrand, faces a tough confirmation hearing.
This latest filing gave Kanter and his team one last chance to define the measures they believe are necessary to restore competition in the research field. It comes six weeks after Justice first floated the idea of a breakup in a preliminary overview of potential sanctions.
But Kanter’s proposal already raises questions about whether regulators are seeking to impose controls that extend beyond the issues covered in last year’s lawsuit and, by extension, Mehta’s ruling.
Banning default search deals for which Google now pays more than $26 billion a year was one of the key practices that troubled Mehta in his decision.
It is less clear whether the judge will accept the Justice Department’s contention that Chrome must be separated from Google and Android must be separated from the company’s other services.
The attempt to break up Google is reminiscent of a similar sanction initially imposed on Microsoft a quarter-century ago, following another major antitrust trial that resulted in a federal judge ruling that the software company had used illegally its Windows operating system for PCs in order to stifle competition.
However, an appeals court overturned an order that would have broken up Microsoft, a precedent that many experts believe will deter Mehta from going down a similar path with the Google case.
