Shares of Google parent Alphabet tumbled more than 6% on Thursday after the Justice Department asked a federal judge to order a selloff of Google’s Chrome web browser – one of several tough remedies aimed at breaking up the Big Tech firm’s monopoly over online search.
In addition the search giant’s go-to web portal, the feds say Google should either be required to sell off its Android operating system or be barred from making search and other services mandatory on Android phones.
The judge could later mandate a sale of Android if Google failed to adhere to the restrictions, DOJ attorneys said in filings late Wednesday. A Bloomberg analyst estimated this week that Chrome could be worth up to $20 billion — a tiny fraction of Alphabet’s $2.2 trillion market capitalization.
While a divestment of Chrome or Android would hurt Google, both are just “appendages” to support the company’s advertising sales that are unlikely to provide much benefit to potential buyers, said tech blogger John Gruber.
“It’s like saying I have to sell my left foot,” Gruber wrote in a blog post this week. “It’s very valuable to me, but of no value to anyone on its own.”
Alphabet’s stock drop, however, also signaled an even bigger worry among investors, analysts said: that such forced sales could loosen Google’s unmatched grip over the lucrative business of selling search ads.
The “fear of potentially having to divest the browser” could hurt Google’s market share and thus is “having an impact” on Wall Street’s outlook, according to Brent Thill, a research analyst at Jefferies.
“Google has 66%+ market share so if that was eliminated, would consumers come back to Google or use another search or AI engine if they were on a new platform?” Thill told The Post.
US District Judge Amit Mehta will have final say over which remedies to implement after deciding in August that Google has an illegal stranglehold over the search market. Any remedies ordered by Mehta could have devastating consequences for an empire that generates more than $300 billion in revenue per year.
A forced divestment of Chrome “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” the DOJ said in its filing.
The DOJ also asked the judge to block Google from entering exclusive agreements with Apple and other companies to ensure its search engine is enabled by default on most smartphones.
During the trial, the feds argued that Google relies on the payments – including $20 billion to Apple in 2022 alone – to amass a more than 90% share of the search market.
Government lawyers also want Google to be required to share data with rival search firms for a decade and stop “self-preferencing” its own products, such as YouTube or the Gemini AI chatbot.
Mehta is expected to issue his final decision on the remedies by next summer. If he decides to order a forced sale of Chrome, Google would be required to follow through within six months of the final ruling, pending the outcome of a likely appeal.
Google also faces a separate DOJ antitrust trial targeting its digital advertising empire, which is scheduled for closing arguments next week.
Google blasted the DOJ’s recommendations in a lengthy blog post.
The company’s chief legal officer Kent Walker – who has faced reprimands from multiple federal judges for his role in implementing a policy that led to evidence destruction related to antitrust inquiries – described the DOJ’s outline as a “radical interventionist agenda.”
“DOJ’s wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court’s decision,” Walker said in the post. “It would break a range of Google products – even beyond Search – that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.”
Google has signaled it will appeal Mehta’s initial ruling as well as any remedies that are ordered.
Meanwhile, the search giant’s critics lauded the DOJ’s requests.
DuckDuckGo, a rival search engine whose founder Gabriel Weinberg testified against Google during the trial, was among those who spoke in favor of the outline.
“The government has put forward a proposal that would free the search market from Google’s illegal grip and unleash a new era of innovation, investment, and competition,” said Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs at DuckDuckGo.
“There’s nothing radical about this proposal: it’s firmly based on the court’s extensive finding of fact and proposes solutions in line with previous antitrust actions,” Bazbaz added.
Still, not everyone is convinced that the DOJ’s proposals would be effective.
Bloomberg tech correspondent Mike Gurman called the idea of a forced sale of Chrome “absurd.”
“Chrome is worth billions to Google but not on the open market,” Gurman said. “And any company that buys it would just be creating a new monopoly.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory added another wrinkle to the fight over Google’s future.
For years, Trump has been an outspoken critic of Google, accusing the company of exhibiting political bias and even election interference related to allegedly biased search results.
However, Trump has more recently said he is against a breakup of the company because it would benefit China and other rivals such as Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.
Elsewhere, Trump’s attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz has publicly called for a breakup of Google, but his confirmation to the key post is far from certain due to allegations of sexual misconduct during his time in Congress.
