The United States hopes that judges break up with Google, force sales of Chrome: This is what to know
The U.S. Department of Justice and Google faced court in court for accusing the company of dominance in the search engine market. As a result, the Justice Department advocates that Google sell some of its key assets, including its Chrome browser. The hearing began on April 22 and is expected to last for three weeks.
The proposal has attracted interest from several tech companies, including OpenAI, Cllexity AI and Yahoo, all of which have expressed willingness to buy Chrome if the court requires it to be sold.
The case could change the way tech companies are doing business and how people find answers to their online search queries. Government lawyers raised grounds in an open statement Monday, saying Google should be forced to sell its web browser Chrome, which pushes people to the Google search engine.
Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist said the company should also be forced to help the competition engine, as Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist said the company's competition was unfair.
“This is when the court tells Google and all other monopolists to listen there, they are listening, and there are consequences when you violate antitrust laws,” according to the New York Times.
Google Counter
Google's lawyers say any remedy should only consider the company's deals with companies like Apple, Mozilla and Samsung to make it the default search engine for smartphones and other devices.
“Google has won a place in Market Fairs and Plazas,” said NBC News.
Amit P. Meta of the District Court of the District of Columbia (U.S.
Mehta is the judge who ruled in August that Google illegally maintained a monopoly. The trial, which took 10 weeks and lasted for several years.
“After careful consideration and weighing witness testimony and evidence, the court concluded that Google is the monopolist, and it is the monopolist that maintains its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in the August ruling. “It violates Article 2 of the Sherman Act.”
Mehta is expected to order remedies at the end of the summer after hearing the argument.
Watch the following: The judge said Google is illegally monopolised: What about now?
Google is currently the king of online searches, with a global market share of more than 89%, a slight decline from 91% last summer, according to GlobalStats.
Google's representatives transferred CNET to a company's online statement before the hearing began. Among them, company vice president Lee-Anne Mulholland said that this comprehensive remedy would harm the U.S. economy.
Mulholland called the operation a “backward-looking case” and said the Justice Department proposal would make it harder for users to get preferred services, which would prevent the company from leveling competition and force Google to share users' private search queries with other companies.
Openai, Confused and Yahoo Want to Buy Chrome
On Tuesday, OpenAI executive Nick Turley testified that his company is interested in buying Google Chrome if it is forced to sell it.
He also said that Openai’s artificial intelligence chatbot Chatgpt is “years away from the goal of being able to answer 80% of queries using its own search technology.” Turley also testified that Google rejected Openai’s attempt to use Google’s search technology in Chatgpt.
The other two companies also expressed interest in buying Chrome -Cloxity AI and Yahoo.
Confused Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko expressed interest in buying Chrome in court.
Yahoo's general manager of search, Brian Provost, also testified that the company is interested in acquiring Chrome. Yahoo has been developing its own browser prototype, but believes that buying Chrome is the speed of increasing search market share.
Potential results
There are many things that can happen to Google, including a breakup of the company. If such a fine is made, it could involve breaking the company's Chrome browser or Android smartphone operating system department.
The Justice Department wants to ban Google from signing exclusive agreements to make its search engine the default setting on devices and browsers. The Justice Department also wants Google to share certain user data with its competitors to upgrade the competitive environment.
This will be the first government attempt to tear down an illegal monopoly company, as its unsuccessful efforts broke down Microsoft twenty years ago.
Google may also be forced to provide its data to competitors or abandon controversial economic transactions, which makes Google search engines default on devices like iPhones.
Can Google solve it?
“My intuition is that Google will be allied with some compromises,” Chirag Shah, a professor at the University of Washington School of Information, told CNET. “There are three big things on the negotiation table: a chrome browser, a deal with Apple and others on the default search engine, and an ad market where Google has a lot of data. I don't think the FTC will get all the data, so the problem is there is a worthwhile solution for both parties.”
Openai, Microsoft and Apple all benefit from Google's popularity, but also compete directly with the search giant, Shah said, voiced them as “Frenemies.”
“I’ll also be interested in the position of Duckduckgo here,” Shah refers to the privacy search engine. “For a long time, all these monopolistic behaviors have been shown by all these monopolistic behaviors.
But Google is still a huge gorilla in the search world, he pointed out.
“As far as traditional search goes, yes, Google is actually the only player,” Shah said. “When you have a market share of 90%, I don’t know how to describe it. There is this unbalanced product category. [into] Be a newcomer and survive. Dozens of companies are coming and going, and in the near future I can’t see anyone breaking through this. ”
Why is this all important?
Google isn't the only company facing legal issues. Major tech companies Apple and Amazon are also facing antitrust lawsuits. The antitrust trial against Meta, owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, begins on April 14.
The trial may also affect the rapidly developing era of artificial intelligence. The Justice Department said it hopes Google will further expand its monopoly using its AI products if remedies are not imposed on Google.
Furthermore, the presidential administration has changed since the trial in August. As the Times noted, the hearings show that the Trump administration intends to focus on the ever-changing tech industry.
Will people switch from the default search engine?
August's case focused on Google's payments to Apple and other companies to make its search engine default on devices like Apple's iPhone. Google has said it has not maintained a monopoly through such protocols and that consumers can change their device default devices to use other search engines.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified in October that the idea of people moving from one search engine to another was “completely fake” and added that “the default value is the only important thing to change search behavior.”
According to the Times, Google's search engine is nearly 90% the time, but the company questioned the number.
The bill dates back to 1890, banning activities that restrict interstate trade and competition in the market, essentially declaring corporate monopoly. This was the cornerstone of U.S. antitrust legislation that led to the federal government's bankruptcy of the Gilded Age industrial giants in the late 19th century.
CNET's Imad Khan contributed to this report.
