US Department of Justice Suggests Splitting Off Chrome and Android From Google

The US Justice Department has just detailed a series of measures to break Google’s monopoly as part of its antitrust lawsuit against the search giant. To end Google’s monopoly in search and advertising, the US DOJ is suggesting splitting off Chrome or Android, forcing Google to share search queries, clicks, and results with competitors, and limiting Google’s ability to sign deals with other companies like Apple to make its search engine the default option.

The new set of remedies suggested by the Departement of Justice follow an August ruling from an federal judge, who determined that Google’s search engine was a monopoly and that the company’s search deals with Apple and other companies were violating antitrust laws. The Department of Justice and 11 US states first accused Google of abusing its power in online search back in 2020. Google is also facing a separate antitrust lawsuit from the DOJ over its ad tech monopoly.

In the new court filing published today, the US Justice department explained that it’s “considering behavioral and structural remedies  that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features—including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence—over rivals or new entrants.” Google has already responded to the court filing and said that the DOJ’s proposals go “well beyond the legal scope of the Court’s decision about Search distribution contracts.”

“This case is about a set of search distribution contracts. Rather than focus on that, the government seems to be pursuing a sweeping agenda that will impact numerous industries and products, with significant unintended consequences for consumers, businesses, and American competitiveness,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland Vice President, Regulatory Affairs at Google. “The DOJ’s outline also comes at a time when competition in how people find information is blooming, with all sorts of new entrants emerging and new technologies like AI transforming the industry.”

In its response to the DOJ’s proposals, Google claimed that splitting off Chrome or Android would “break them.” According to the search giant, few companies have the resources to keep Android and Chromium open-source and secure. “Breaking them off would change their business models, raise the cost of devices, and undermine Android and Google Play in their robust competition with Apple’s iPhone and App Store,” Mulholland said.

The company also argued that splitting off Chrome and Android would negatively impact feature that rely on a tight integration between Google services, including Chrome’s Safe Browsing and Android’s security features. “Severing Chrome and Android would jeopardize security and make patching security bugs harder,” the exec claimed.

The DOJ plans to share a more detailed set of remedies in November 2024, and Google is also free to propose its own set of remedies before December. On Monday, a US judge also ruled in a separate case that the company must open up its Google Play Store to third parties, allow developers to use the in-app payment system of their choice, and make some other changes to better support competition.