Happy Thursday folks,
Well, the request is in to make Google sell Chrome. Now we just have to wait for April to find out if the judge even seems to agree. There were other, more likely remedies proposed as well. I break them all down for you.
And Australia tried to ban kids from talking on the internet. Good luck.
Tom
Big Story
DoJ Proposes Google Chrome Sale as Monopoly Remedy
DoJ Seeks to Break Up Google, Force Chrome Sale as Monopoly Punishment – AP News
Google Selling Chrome Won’t Be Enough to End Its Search Monopoly – WIRED
US Justice Department Seeks Google Chrome Sale to Curb Monopoly – Bloomberg
Earlier this week, we had the news that the DoJ might ask the judge in Google's antitrust case to order Google to sell Chrome as part of his remedy. The judge found earlier this year that Google had abused its market position in online search and search text ads. Well, the filing is in, and as expected, ordering Google to sell off Chrome within six months of the decision is one of the proposed remedies. The idea is that Chrome is dominant, and the browser is the main way people search, so forcing it to sell off Chrome would remove that as a place where Google can force its own search on people.
Here’s what else the DoJ proposed:
Prohibit Google from making exclusive deals for search, like the ones it has with Samsung and Apple.
Compel Google to license its search index to other search engines.
Require transparency on how it sets ad prices for being listed at the top of search.
Prohibit Google from favoring its own services in search results, like YouTube and Gemini.
Prohibit Google from owning or having investments in search rivals and AI-related products.
Require Google to make sure websites can choose not to have their content used for training Gemini and other AI models.
Prevent Android from favoring Google Search and force Google to sell Android if an oversight committee finds further evidence of misconduct.
Set up an oversight committee to ensure compliance.
It’s not shocking that Google objected to all these remedies.
This is just the beginning of a long process. Google is expected to file its proposed remedies by December 20th. The judge will hold a hearing to discuss the proposals from both sides in April. Then the judge will deliberate and make a decision about which, if any, of these remedies he will impose by the end of August.
The judge expressed interest in the idea of prohibiting Google from making exclusive search deals, so that seems like the most likely to be adopted. He will also probably go for the idea of setting up an oversight committee. Transparency and letting websites opt out of training are low-burden, so he might go for those too. A little more punitive would be restricting the favoring of its own services in search results. Not favoring Google Search in Android is a little more restrictive, but I could see it. Beyond that, maybe the search licensing if he wants to be bold. Forcing a selloff of Chrome and prohibiting investments are the long shots. The judge will only order that if he really wants to punish Google and thinks their behavior has been egregious. The trial didn’t indicate that the judge thought that way, so I call those two remedies unlikely.
And don’t forget: whatever the judge decides by next August, Google will appeal. Its appeal is likely to be granted, which means some sort of new trial. So, none of this will happen anytime soon. And even if it results in some of these remedies, by the time the process is finished, the landscape, which is already changing, will have changed in more and unexpected ways. With Large Language Models continuing to improve and be implemented, search indexes will likely not be what they are now by then.
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