The Department of Justice, on Tuesday, is expected to make a presentation that outlines steps that could be forcibly taken by Alphabet’s Google to improve competition in the online search market, including partial divestiture of the technology company.
The Justice Department countered that Google’s primacy in internet search is the result of innovation and consumer preference. In the wake of an August federal court ruling that found Google holds an illegal monopoly in online search, the smaller rivals are asking the court to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser or at least prohibit the company from continuing to pay billions of dollars to ensure its search engine is the default option on devices such as Apple’s iPhone.
These broad filings from the DOJ bring a significant development to a historic case that could upend how Americans find information online, as a judge already has ruled that Google has already established an unlawful monopoly by handling 90 percent of internet searches within the United States.
The decision, by US District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, is a major victory for antitrust regulators who have pursued an ambitious agenda against some of the biggest technology companies over the past four years.
Google said it would appeal the decision and countered that its search engine was popular precisely because it was the best. Google also contended that its service faces powerful competition from other platforms, such as Amazon and other online destinations where users navigate directly to conduct their queries for goods and services, or can adopt rival search engines as their default.
Some of Google’s rivals have advocated a corporate breakup. Yelp, a review website that filed a lawsuit against Google in August over search practices, said that forcing the company to sell its Chrome browser and AI businesses at least should be considered. Yelp also wants Google to refrain from giving preference in search results to local business listings belonging to Google, which are rivals to Yelp.
Adam Epstein, president and co CEO of search advertising company adMarketplace, said the possibility of divestiture could be used to strong arm the company into some lesser sanctions.
“Google is not going to have the incentive to comply unless they have the Damocles’ sword of divestiture hanging above them,” he said.
Rival search engine provider DuckDuckGo has called on the court to force Google to license its search results to competitors that could build and improve their offerings on top.
Microsoft (MSFT.O), which operates rival search engine Bing, and Apple (AAPL.O), which pockets billions of dollars every year from Google, did not comment.
Otherwise, he said, Google will have no incentive to follow the regulations if divestiture is not hanging over their head. The rival search engine DuckDuckGo has called on the court to order Google to license its search results to other companies so they could build out and enhance their own services. Microsoft, which operates the rival Bing search engine, and Apple, which collects billions of dollars in revenue from Google every year, declined to comment.
