Google will be forced to close its operations after antitrust proceedings

On By Yukito

  • US District Judge Amit Mehta plans to force Google to sell part of its business in order to end its current monopoly in the search industry.
  • Google controls over 90% of the online search industry. However, the court ruled that he had achieved this dominance unfairly. Several design changes were ordered.
  • Google does not agree with the ruling and has decided to appeal it.

Google may have to go out of business after epic failure in antitrust case

In a landmark ruling, the US government is considering forcing Google to split up part of its business in order to end its illegal monopoly in the online search industry.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the decision in a court filing Tuesday following U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in the Google antitrust case. A more detailed proposal will be submitted by November 20, and the company will have until December 20 to propose its own remedies.

Google is currently the number one search engine, with over 90% of the industry under its wing. However, the strategies used to gain such astonishing control over the market are allegedly unethical.

For example, it was found that Google pays phone manufacturers to set its search engine as the default option on their devices. This discovery was made in the iconic August judgment of the antitrust court, which found that the company was guilty of creating an illegal monopoly and abusing its dominant position on the market.

What are the proposed changes related to the breakup with Google?

The case revealed that Google often uses its own products such as Google Play and Google Chrome to profit from its own search business. This will have to end. Google Search will be completely separated from the browser, app store and Android.

The tech giant may also be forced to disclose data it used to build its search engine and upcoming AI products. Given the degree of control the company has in the market, authorities fear it may also try to gain a dominant position in the AI ​​industry.

“Google’s ability to leverage its monopoly power to power artificial intelligence features constitutes an emerging barrier to competition and threatens to further entrench Google’s dominance,” the judge said in the lawsuit.

The most important change, however, is that Google will be forced to do so end all contracts with phone manufacturers to pre-install the application on your devices. This is indeed a notorious habit of the technology giant.

For example, in 2021 alone, it invested more than $26.3 billion in deals with Apple and other phone makers to make Google Chrome the default search engine on their devices. This makes it more difficult for competing search engines to gain a foothold in the market and denies users the right to make an independent choice over which they have no influence.

So the judge does recommended adding a “selection screen” at the beginning of the Android phone setup process, where users can immediately select the browser they want to use as the default.

Several of Google’s smaller rivals, such as Yelp, adMarketplace and DuckDuckGo, are also calling for forcing Google to sell parts of its business. However, a decision on this matter has not been made yet.

What does Google have to say about this?

Google has vowed to appeal the decision, calling it too “radical.” The company maintains that it has achieved a dominant position in the industry by consistently offering high-quality services.

She also added that there are many other platforms such as Amazon that pose strong competition to it. Additionally, no user is forced to use Google Chrome as their default browser; they can freely switch to another browser.

The tech giant also believes that proposed changes may inhibit innovationespecially in the artificial intelligence industry, and may expose third party data, violating their privacy. Overall, the company says there’s a lot at stake.