On November 20, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Google must sell Chrome due to its unauthorized monopoly of online search, according to a report from the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. Amit Mehta, the District Court judge, will eventually decide what Google’s final punishment should be. The trial is expected to begin sometime in the summer of 2025, according to The New York Times.
Mehta initially ruled in August that Google was an illegal monopoly for having sole control over online searches, due to its payments to third parties to continue being a default search engine, which contributed to its possession of numerous gateways to the internet. The DOJ’s latest report indicated that Google would have to give up Android and Chrome because they are the key distribution channels for Google’s search engine. For instance, as of 2024, Chrome controls about 61% of the browser market in the United States, according to Bloomberg. Currently, the DOJ mandates that Google divest Chrome while the DOJ proposes two potential solutions for Android: “divest or submit to government oversight,” The Guardian reports. In other words, if Google refuses to establish limitations on Android, it would have to sell the mobile operating system to conform to the regulations.
As for Chrome, the DOJ’s goal is to increase competition, as Google search is the main pathway to search options with Chrome being a close second. Without Chrome, Google would lose the youth market as Chromebooks are affordable computers for schools that distribute laptops to students. When children are introduced to one company’s products, they develop a habit of using them and may even utilize those products in the future. Since Chromebooks operate under Chrome OS, Google would lose millions of users of its products.
The DOJ also reported that Google will be prohibited from entering the browser market again for five years from after Google sells Chrome. After the sale of Chrome, Google is also prohibited from owning “any rival ad text search, query-based AI product, or ad technology,” according to TechCrunch. Furthermore, with the new restrictions, publishers and website owners can opt out of Google using their data to train future AI models. Some even argue that Google should be prohibited from creating contracts with third parties such as Apple, in which Google is the default search engine. However, given Google Search’s popularity, Apple is “likely to continue with Google as the default search engine” even without any contracts, Reuters predicts.
“The DOJ’s wildly overboard proposal goes miles beyond the Court’s decision. It would break a range of Google products—even beyond Search—that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives,” Kent Walker, the president of global affairs and Google’s chief legal officer said in response to the DOJ’s newest restrictions in a blog post. Walker anticipated that the restrictions would hinder individuals’ rights to access Google’s search engine and would damage Google’s stance in the AI race.
As a result, Google is expected to file its own suggestions for the remedial plans by December 20, so it can also modify its requests before the court ruling in the summer. While it remains unclear whether these efforts to block Google’s monopoly will continue under President Trump, historically speaking, some of Google’s antitrust lawsuits began during his first administration. With the growing discontent amongst both sides, the results of this lawsuit have the potential to change the direction of Google for the next several decades in the future.
