To save Chrome, Google is ready to make major changes in its relations with Apple and other partners

US regulators are putting pressure on Google, accusing it of illegally dominating the online search market. Google believes that the Justice Department’s plan to force the company to sell the Chrome browser to fight the company’s monopoly is contrary to current law. However, to avoid such a scenario, Google is ready to renegotiate its agreements with Apple and other partners, making them non-exclusive.

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Last month, the U.S. Justice Department and prosecutors in several states asked Judge Amit Mehta, who is presiding over the antitrust lawsuit against Google, asking the Internet giant to order the Internet giant to sell its Chrome web browser and make a number of other changes to break up the monopoly. Google in the search market and increase the level of competition in this segment.

The court declared illegal Google’s practice of concluding contracts with software and device developers, thanks to which the Google search engine became the default search engine in third-party products. The court found that these agreements give Google a “substantial, largely invisible advantage over its competitors” and result in the majority of devices in the US coming with Google’s search engine pre-installed. To enable the Play Store app store, developers have to pre-install Google search.

In an effort to avoid a forced sale of Chrome, Google proposed making all agreements with device makers non-exclusive and for Android phone makers to separate their app store from Chrome and search. Google has also promised to allow browser developers to revise the default search engine annually.

Google will not cancel agreements that pay a portion of Google’s search advertising revenue to the device and software companies that market it as the default search engine. In 2022 alone, Apple received about $20 billion from its agreement with Google. Independent browser developers, including Mozilla, say payments from Google are critical to their operations.

Google’s proposal sets the stage for a trial scheduled for April 2025 in which the U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of states will try to argue for sweeping legal remedies, including the sale of Google Chrome and possibly its Android mobile operating system. The government plans to call witnesses from OpenAI, search AI startup Perplexity and Microsoft. The plaintiffs also want Google to stop paying for being designated as the default search engine, stop investing in search competitors and AI products, and license its search results and technology to competitors.

Google considers the Justice Department’s demands “a radical attempt to interfere with the search market.” The Internet giant also urged the federal judge to exercise caution as his decision could have a negative impact on future innovation. According to Google, this is especially true “in an environment where remarkable innovations in artificial intelligence are rapidly changing the way people interact with many online products and services, including search engines.”