Feds consider rare push to break up Google for illegal monopolization

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Federal officials are weighing whether to recommend a judge break up parts of Google after the search giant was found to have broken antitrust laws, reports indicate.

The US Department of Justice is reviewing the case and will submit its recommendations to Judge Amit Mehta in the coming weeks. Last week, Judge Mehta ruled that Google had a monopoly over the internet search business and had taken illegal steps to maintain their power, including by paying other companies to prioritize their engine.

These recommendations could include forcing Google to break parts of its company like its Chrome browser or Android system, The New York Times reports, citing unnamed officials familiar with the discussions.

Justice Department officials may also recommend Judge Mehta force Google to release its data to rival companies. The federal judge could also mandate Google end deals with tech companies like Apple that make its search engine the default on their devices, according to the Times.

Another option could include measures to prevent Google from gaining unfair advantages in artificial intelligence, Bloomberg News reports.

The Justice Department and Google must submit their process to end the power imbalance by September 4, Judge Mehta said. The next hearing is scheduled for September 6.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice told the Times that no decisions have been made yet.

This marked the largest DOJ-led antitrust case against the tech industry since the famous Microsoft case two decades ago, according to The Verge.

Google’s attorneys argued it was so successful because of its attractive product offerings, rather than via monopoly tactics. They also said Google should be compared not just with fellow search engines, but with other companies like Amazon that rely on web traffic.

“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google parent company Alphabet, told The Independent last week.

“We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is ‘the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users’, that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices’, ‘has continued to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior,’” he continued.

Google is also facing a separate case brought by the DOJ and eight states accusing the company of dominating the online advertising market.

The Independent has contacted Google for comment.