US regulators want a federal judge to break google Preventing the company from continuing to compete in squash competitions through its dominant search engine, the court found that it had maintained an abusive monopoly over the previous decade.
The proposed breakup, in a 23-page document filed late Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department, involves restrictions designed to prevent Google from selling its industry-leading Chrome web browser and its Android smartphone software to favor its search engine. Has been asked for.
The recommended penalties underscore how seriously regulators working under President Biden believe Google should be punished following U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's August ruling that branded Google as a monopolistJustice Department decision-makers handling the case may not be as clear-cut once President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year. A Washington, D.C. court hearing on Google's sentencing is scheduled to begin in April, and Mehta aims to issue his final decision before Labor Day.
If Mehta accepts the Justice Department's recommendations, Google will almost certainly appeal the sentence, prolonging a legal battle that has lasted more than four years.
In addition to seeking to control the Chrome spinoff and Android software, the Justice Department wants a judge to ban Google from striking billion-dollar deals to lock its flagship search engine as the default option on Apple's iPhone and other devices .
Regulators also want Google to share data collected from people's queries with its rivals, giving them a better chance to compete with the tech giant.
If these measures are ordered, a business expected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue this year is at risk of being wiped out — a money-making machine that has helped Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc.
“Google's conduct does not level the playing field, and Google's quality reflects an unfair advantage over illegally obtained profits,” the Justice Department said in its recommendations. “The measure should close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages.”
It's still possible the Justice Department could ease efforts to break up Google, especially if Trump makes the widely expected move to replace Jonathan Cantor, appointed by Biden to oversee the agency's antitrust division. Was.
Although the case targeting Google was originally filed during the final months of Trump's first term in office, Cantor oversaw the high-profile trial that culminated in Mehta's verdict against Google. Working closely with Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan, Cantor took a tough stance against Big Tech, leading other efforts to crack down on industry powerhouses like Apple and discouraging business deals during the past four years .
Trump recently expressed concern that a breakup could destroy Google, but he did not elaborate on alternative punishments he might have in mind. “You can make it fairer without breaking it,” Trump said last month. Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman whom Trump nominated to be the next US attorney general, has previously called for breaking up Big Tech companies.
Trump firebrand Gaetz faces tough confirmation hearings.
This latest filing gives Cantor and his team a final chance to outline the measures they say are needed to restore competition in search. It comes six weeks after the justices first introduced the idea of a breakup in their preliminary outline of potential penalties.
But Cantor's proposal is already raising questions about whether regulators want to impose controls beyond the issues covered in last year's trial and — by extension — the Mehta decision.
Banning default search deals, which Google now pays more than $26 billion annually to maintain, was one of the main practices that troubled Mehta in his decision.
It's less clear whether the judge will accept the Justice Department's argument that Chrome should be separated from Google and Android should be separated from the company's other services.
The effort to break up Google is reminiscent of a similar punishment launched on Microsoft a quarter-century ago, which followed another major antitrust trial that culminated in a federal judge ruling that the software maker had illegally used its Windows operating system for PCs to suppress competition.
However, an appeals court overturned that order, which would have broken up Microsoft, a precedent that many experts believe will make Mehta reluctant to go down a similar path with the Google case.