US DOJ Considers Breaking Google Up After Monopoly Ruling

Back in August, a US federal judge has ruled that internet search giant Google has maintained a monopoly online over search and advertising markets. More recently, the country’s Department of Justice has recommended the breaking up of the company as a remedy to said monopoly.

In a filing, the DOJ said that it was “considering … structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play and Android to advantage … search-related products and features”. Also suggested was the limiting or outright banning of the Alphabet subsidiary from things like default and preinstallation agreements. This will include things like being the default search engine for iOS Safari, or even Mozilla Firefox for that matter.

Google naturally plans to appeal the ruling, but in response to the breaking up of the company, it says that the recommendations are “radical” and would break more things than just Chrome or Android. In a blog post, the company explains that this is because all of these products use interconnected systems, splitting them would make patching security bugs harder. This in turn breaks things for other companies that use them as a basis for their own products, including Chromium-based browsers and, naturally, Android phones.

For now, it’s unclear what the end result will be, or what sort of ripple effects we’ll be seeing as a result. But CNBC cites legal experts who say that the ending of default and preinstall agreements is more likely to happen. The breaking up of Google, on the other hand, not so much.

(Source: CourtListener, Google, CNBC)