Google Facing Breakup in US Court Case

The Department of Justice says it may ask a judge to forcibly break up Google's business over its alleged monopoly abuses. Google called it an overreach and says such a move could kill Android or Chrome.

Google lost a court case in August for breaking antitrust laws in the way it built up and maintained a 90 percent market share in online searches. The DOJ must now put proposals before a court on how to remedy this breach.

In a preliminary filing, the DOJ says it is considering the most serious option of "structural remedies". That could mean Google would no longer be able to maintain its full set of tech businesses including the Android operating system, Chrome browser and Play app store, instead having to give at least one up.

The DOJ's argument is that Google has abused the powers it has to combine these different businesses to maintain dominance in different markets.

Open Source Fears

Google says it would fight any such proposals, arguing they go beyond the legal issues covered by the ruling. They also say that if they were forced to sell off either Chrome or Android, there's no guarantee the services would survive in their current form as the new owners might not keep their open source-based status. (Source: reuters.com)

The DOJ also says it is exploring less drastic "behavioral remedies". The most significant of these would be that Google could no longer pay device manufacturers to install its search tools or to make Google the default search option. (Source: theguardian.com)

No Decision Till 2025

Other suggestions include Google having to share its search index with other sites and giving advertisers more information about how it decides who wins its auction-like system of deciding which ad is shown in response to a particular user search.

The DOJ says the proposals aren't final as it is still gathering information from Google's internal documents which it was forced to provide in the discover process. As things stand, the DOJ will make updated proposals as soon as possible but the judge won't decide what will actually happen until next August.

What's Your Opinion?

Is a breakup of Google too harsh a penalty? Is Google right to say that selling off Android or Chrome could effectively kill off the services as we know them? Are any of the behavioral remedies more appropriate?