Google must sell Chrome, says the US Department of Justice (DoJ), but is not pushing for the search giant to give up its AI services. Yet.
“Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that – no matter what occurs – Google always wins,” the DOJ wrote to the court, which last year found the tech giant was a “monopolist”.
“The American people thus are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting, ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in return for a search engine the public may enjoy,” the DoJ added.
Last year, United States District Judge Amit Mehta wrote that “unconstrained price increases have fuelled Google’s dramatic revenue growth and allowed it to maintain high and remarkably stable operating profits”.
He found that “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly”.
Read more: “Monopolist” Google faces a bigger existential threat
The DoJ is pushing for Google to sell off Chrome, which is the second largest funnel of surveillance capitalism after Google itself. Even if you opt out of the enormous amount of cookies and other tracking software, Google still knows where you go and what you look at. As the DoJ asserts: “Google always wins”.
The alleged monopolist, of course, thinks nothing is wrong and hasn’t updated its proposal since it made it last year, which is essentially to keep the status quo as is.
“DOJ’s sweeping proposals continue to go miles beyond the Court’s decision and would harm America’s consumers, economy, and national security,” a Google spokesperson said.
It’s worth noting how Google is concerned that the “[c]ourt’s decision would harm America’s consumers, economy, and national security,” while the DoJ argues that the American people “are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting, ideological preferences of an economic leviathan”.
This fight is by no means over, but it’s clear that the DoJ hasn’t dropped its guard and is still pushing for the need to sell off Chrome. Google is unlikely to win this fight and should count itself lucky to hang onto Android.
But, how long before the Department of Justice comes for Android too?
