An attempt to break up Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found the company had monopolized the online search market, according to Bloomberg.
The move would be Washington’s first effort to break up a company for illegal monopolization since the unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago. Less severe options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products.
Regardless, the U.S. government will likely seek a ban on the kind of exclusive contracts that were at the center of the Google lawsuit. If the Justice Department goes ahead with a spinoff plan, the most likely units to be divested are Google’s Android operating system and Chrome web browser, people familiar with the matter said. Officials are also seeking to force a possible sale of AdWords, the platform the company uses to sell text-based advertising.
The Justice Department’s arguments intensified after Judge Amit Mehta’s Aug. 5 ruling that Google illegally monopolized the markets for online search and search text ads. Google said it would appeal that ruling, but Mehta ordered both sides to begin planning for the second phase of the case, which will involve the government’s proposals to restore competition, including a possible request for a breakup.
Justice Department lawyers who have been consulting with companies affected by Google’s practices have raised concerns in their discussions that the company’s dominance gives it an advantage in developing artificial intelligence technology, the people told Bloomberg. As part of a solution, the government could try to block the company from forcing websites to allow their content to be used for some of Google’s AI products to appear in search results.
Divesting the Android operating system, which powers some 2.5 billion devices worldwide, is one of the solutions most frequently discussed by Justice Department lawyers.
For years, websites have allowed Google’s web crawler access to ensure they appear in the company’s search results. But more recently, some of that data has been used to help Google develop its AI.
2024-08-15 21:57:12