Last week, the United States Department of Justice recommended to the federal courts that Google be forced to sell Chrome, and possibly Android, to resolve the monopoly that Google has created. This is a legal ruling with the potential to change the technology space forever.
Back in August, Judge Amit P. Mehta formally ruled that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” in his decision on the years-long United States v. Google LLC case. This is the first antitrust ruling in big tech in more than 20 years, the last being United v. Microsoft Corporation.
The basis of this suit lies in Google’s search functionality. Google search is so ubiquitous that “Googling” has become a verb. The prosecution team cites that Google searches make up roughly 90% of web searches done globally, although Google later disputed this number.
Further, Google has taken serious financial action to ensure it continues dominating the search market. Google pays billions of dollars annually to companies like Apple and Mozilla to ensure that Google search is the default for most common web browsers. For example, when we search anything in Safari’s navigation bar, we are automatically brought to a Google search. That behavior comes with an $18 billion price tag every year.
To resolve Google’s monopoly, the DOJ recommended that Google sell Chrome and end its Chrome default deals with other browsers. If Judge Mehta forces the sale, Chrome could go for up to $20 billion. Companies like Amazon and Meta are likely out of the running to buy Chrome because doing so would turn the antitrust attention toward them.
Beyond everything Chrome-related, their recommendation also includes divesting from Android. Android itself is open source, meaning Google doesn’t profit directly when companies like Samsung use the operating system.
But, any device that operates on Android comes with the Google ecosystem pre-installed, allowing them to profit off of the use of those devices. This makes using Google products the path of least resistance for Android users, making it all the more difficult to switch away from Google. This also creates significantly more real estate for Google to show ads, another extremely profitable part of their business model.
Lastly, in light of this recommendation, Google’s stock has been dropping this week. This does not come as a huge surprise, nor is it a permanent change. This case has been and will continue to be a long and drawn-out process, giving stock prices plenty of time to fluctuate and return to normal.
At this point, nothing is finalized. Google has until the end of the year to respond with its approach to breaking up the search monopoly. They are also in the process of appealing the original monopoly ruling. Judge Mehta is expected to make a final ruling by the end of next summer. The other wildcard at play here is that since the presidential office is changing hands, a new Department of Justice will be handling this case next year. So, the only thing we can be sure of right now is that nothing is finalized.