The Justice Department announced Tuesday night that it is considering filing in federal court to force Google to spin off parts of the company and change its business practices to eliminate its search monopoly. is a move that could redefine the $2 trillion company’s core business.
The government said in a filing that it could ask a court to force Google to make the data underlying its search engine available to competitors.
The company said it was considering asking Google to make “structural” changes to prevent it from leveraging the power of its Chrome browser, Android operating system and Play app store to benefit its search business. said. However, they were unable to determine what those changes were.
“Google’s anticompetitive conduct has resulted in interlocking harms that have created unprecedented complexity in a series of highly evolving markets,” the government said in a filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. said. “These markets are essential to the lives of all Americans, whether individuals or business owners, and the importance of effectively unshackling these markets and restoring competition cannot be overstated. I cannot stress this enough.”
LeeAnne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulation, said in a blog post following the allegations that the company is concerned that the Justice Department has “already indicated requests that go well beyond the specific legal issues in this case.” He said he is doing so.
In a landmark ruling in August, the court’s Judge Amit P. Mehta said Google “is a monopoly and has acted as one in order to maintain its monopoly.” Judge Mehta ruled in the case that the company crossed the line when it paid billions of dollars to companies like Apple and Samsung to provide automatic search engines for web browsers and smartphones. vs. Google.
The Justice Department’s request is the first formal step in a potentially months-long process that could reshape a company synonymous with searching for answers online. Any restrictions on Google’s search business could redefine online competition with rivals such as Microsoft and OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
Besides requiring Google to release some of the data that identifies the secret sources of its search results, the most extreme option would require Google to completely separate parts of its search business. . The company would then join a small list of companies, including AT&T and Standard Oil, that have split up after bitter battles with the U.S. government.
Judge Mehta’s decision on how to address concerns about Google’s monopolistic practices expected next year will help the government rein in tech giants that influence the way we shop, consume information, and communicate online. This will demonstrate the strength of our efforts.
Federal antitrust authorities have sued Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta. They are also filing a second lawsuit over Google’s ad tech business, with a federal judge expected to rule as early as this year. And already, the federal government’s Trustbuster has set its sights on another group of companies specializing in artificial intelligence, launching investigations into Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia.
(The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December for copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems.)
The Justice Department is expected to submit a final request in November on how to remedy Google’s monopoly through so-called remedies. In December, Google will have the opportunity to propose its own amendments to Judge Mehta. The company plans to appeal the ruling that it illegally maintained a search monopoly.
The case has been in court for years. In 2020, the Trump administration’s Justice Department and several states argued that internet giants drove competitors out of the search market by paying other companies to make their technology the default option for users. , sued Google over its search business. .
The government argued in a 10-week trial last year that these advertising sites sent more search queries to Google than to their competitors. Google was able to use that data to widen the gap between its products and rivals such as Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo, the government said.
Google argued that it faces a lot of competition in the search space, including social media apps like TikTok and Instagram, shopping sites like Amazon, and artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT.
Judge Mehta sided with the government, saying Google had fostered a cycle of control that even its better-capitalized competitors were unable to break.
In Tuesday’s filing, the Justice Department laid out a number of ways it could ask courts to break this cycle. In addition to floating the idea of forcing Google to share data, the government said it could ask a court to block the company from entering into a deal to become an automatic search engine for smartphones and web browsers.
The government has indicated it is closely monitoring developments in artificial intelligence, which companies such as Google are rushing to incorporate into their search products.
“Google’s ability to use its monopoly power to provide artificial intelligence capabilities creates new barriers to competition and risks further entrenching Google’s dominance,” the government said.
It said it could ask a court to give websites the chance to opt out of having their content used to train Google’s AI models. The government also indicated that it may ask a court to stop Google from “using contracts or other practices to undermine access to competitors’ web content.”
Rebecca Ho Allensworth, a professor of antitrust law at Vanderbilt Law School, said the government must avoid alienating Judge Mehta by asking too much.
“So you ask for something really big, like a breakup, knowing that the windmills are tipping and the chances of the judge granting it are very slim?” she asked.
Others outside the Justice Department want it to go down that path. Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University who worked in the Biden White House, argued that the government should ask a judge to force Google to spin off its Android browser and smartphone operating system.
In an interview, he said the government should urge Judge Mehta to consider the aggressive antitrust remedies of the past decades. These included the breakup of Standard Oil, which created the Rockefeller family fortune, and a 1956 agreement between the government and AT&T that forced the company to license many of its innovations free of charge, resulting in antitrust laws. Supporters of the movement say it contributed to the legislation. modern semiconductor industry.
“I think we need to convince the judges to take a broader look at the history of antitrust law,” Wu said.
