The United States Department of Justice wants Google to sell off its Chrome browser as part of an ongoing antitrust lawsuit, reports Bloomberg. Earlier this year, Google was found to have a search monopoly, and antitrust regulators have since been deciding on the actions that should be taken to address Google's anticompetitive practices.
The DoJ plans to ask the court to force Google to sell Chrome, which is the most popular web browser in the world by a wide margin. Chrome's integration with Google Search and other Google products has been cited as one of the factors limiting search competition.
Regulators also want Google to uncouple the Android operating system from other products like Google Search and the Google Play Store, both of which are apps installed on Android devices by default. It's not clear how unbundling Android from Google Play would work as Google Play is the Android app store. The DoJ initially wanted Google to sell off Android entirely, but has since backed off of that suggestion.
The DoJ will recommend that Google be required to license data and syndicate results from Google Search without restrictions. Bloomberg suggests that syndication would allow rival search engines and AI startups to improve their quality, while the data feed would let others build their own search indexes. Google could also be required to share more data with advertisers, with advertisers given more control over where their ads appear.
Google will be prevented from entering into exclusive deals such as the deal that it has with Apple to make Google the default Safari search engine. Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the Safari default.
Google is appealing the antitrust ruling, while the judge overseeing the case plans to hold a two-week hearing in April 2025 to go over what changes Google has to make to address anticompetitive search behavior. From there, a final ruling is set to be issued in August 2025.
