Washington:

The US government late Wednesday asked a judge to order the dismantling of Google by selling its widely used Chrome browser in a major antitrust crackdown on the internet giant.

In a court filing, the US Department of Justice urged a shake-up of Google’s business that includes banning deals for Google to be the default search engine on smartphones and preventing it from exploiting its Android mobile operating system.

Antitrust officials said in the filing that Google should also be made to sell Android if proposed remedies don’t prevent the tech company from using its control of the mobile operating system to its advantage.

Calling for the breakup of Google marks a profound change by the US government’s regulators, which have largely left tech giants alone since failing to break up Microsoft two decades ago.

Google is expected to make its recommendations in a filing next month and both sides will make their case at a hearing in April before US District Court Judge Amit Mehta.

Regardless of Judge Mehta’s eventual decision, Google is expected to appeal the ruling, prolonging the process for years and potentially leaving the final say to the US Supreme Court.

The case could also be upended by the arrival of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House in January.

His administration will likely replace the current team in charge of the DOJ’s antitrust division.

The newcomers could choose to carry on with the case, ask for a settlement with Google, or abandon the case altogether.

Trump has blown hot and cold in how to handle Google and the dominance of big tech companies. 

He has accused the search engine of bias against conservative content, but has also signaled that a forced break up of the company would be too large a demand by the US government. 

Too Extreme?

Determining how to address Google’s wrongs is the next stage of the landmark antitrust trial that saw the company in August ruled a monopoly by Judge Mehta.

Google has dismissed the idea of a breakup as “radical.”

Adam Kovacevich, chief executive of industry trade group Chamber of Progress, said the government’s demands were “fantastical” and defied legal standards, instead calling for narrowly tailored remedies.

The trial, which concluded last year, scrutinized Google’s confidential agreements with smartphone manufacturers, including Apple. 

These deals involve substantial payments to secure Google’s search engine as the default option on browsers, iPhones and other devices.

The judge determined that this arrangement provided Google with unparalleled access to user data, enabling it to develop its search engine into a globally dominant platform. 

From this position, Google expanded its tech and data-gathering empire to include the Chrome browser, Maps and the Android smartphone operating system.

According to the judgment, Google controlled 90 percent of the US online search market in 2020, with an even higher share, 95 percent, on mobile devices.

The US government currently has five cases pending against big tech over antitrust concerns after the Biden administration adopted a tough stance on reining in the dominance of the companies.

If carried through by the Trump administration, the cases against Amazon, Meta, and Apple, as well as two against Google, could take years to litigate.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

The government is seeking to show that Alphabet’s Google broke antitrust law to maintain its dominance in online search. (File)
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

The US Justice Department on Monday objected to removing the public from the court during some discussions of how Google prices online advertising, one of the issues at the heart of the antitrust trial under way in Washington.

The government is seeking to show that Alphabet’s Google broke antitrust law to maintain its dominance in online search. The search dominance led to fast-increasing advertising revenues that made Google a $1 trillion company.

David Dahlquist, speaking for the government, pointed to a document that was redacted that had a short back and forth about Google’s pricing for search advertising.

Dahlquist then argued to Judge Amit Mehta, who will decide the case, that information like the tidbit in the document should not be redacted. “This satisfies public interest because it’s at the core of the DOJ case against Google,” he said.

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Speaking for Google, John Schmidtlein urged that all discussions of pricing be in a closed session, which means the public and reporters must leave the courtroom.

It is not unusual in merger trials for information like market share and business and pricing strategies to be redacted.

And sometimes the redactions are broader since, essentially, the companies want the information hidden and the government lawyers fighting the merger are working flat out to win rather than worrying about over-sealing, said Katherine Van Dyck, an experienced litigator and senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project.

“Litigation is a pretty grueling process,” she said.

Her organisation has pushed for the trial to be put onto telephone lines, as pre-trial hearings were because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge Mehta denied that motion.

Van Dyck believes that Mehta’s call was the wrong one.

“When you have these cases with massive, broad public interest and public import, the courts need to do a better job of taking that into account, change their rules and keep up with modern technology,” she said.

Case in point was testimony given early Monday by a Verizon executive, Brian Higgins, about the company’s decision to always pre-install Google’s Chrome browser with Google search on its mobile phones.

After about 30 minutes of testimony, Higgins’ testimony was closed for the next two hours.

It’s possible that he was asked about Google’s payments to Verizon but the public will never know. Those payments – which the government said are $10 billion annually to mobile carriers and others – helped the California-based tech giant win powerful default positions on smartphones and elsewhere.

Throughout the trial, Google’s defense is that its high market share reflects the quality of its product rather than any illegal actions to build monopolies in some aspects of its business.

The antitrust fight could change the future of the internet, now dominated by four giants that have been under scrutiny from Congress and antitrust enforcers since the Trump administration. Companies have defended themselves by emphasising that their services are free, as in the case of Google, or inexpensive, as in the case of Amazon.com.

If Google is found to have broken the law, Judge Mehta, who is deciding the case, will then consider how best to resolve it. He may decide simply to order Google to stop practices he has found to be illegal or he may order Google to sell assets.