In August, US federal judge Amit Mehta declared Google a monopolist, and the Department of Justice began to propose solutions to eradicate the company’s illegal behavior, as well as restore competition in the search engine market. To achieve this, “behavioural and structural remedies” are being considered.
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The measures allowed range from agreements to monitor the company’s behavior to forcing the sale of parts of the business, including Chrome, Android or Google Play. The browser, mobile platform and mobile app store are seen as ways to cement Google’s dominance in the search engine market.
The biggest issue the plaintiffs point to is the company’s payments to make its search engine the default on other platforms, including the Apple iPhone. “Competitors cannot compete for these distribution channels because Google’s monopoly-funded revenue-sharing payments disincentivize its partners from sending requests to Google’s competitors,” the DOJ notes.
The agency also points out aspects of the company’s activities that affect user behavior. Specifically, Google could be forced to “support educational literacy campaigns that improve users’ ability to choose the general purpose search engine that best suits them.”
Google predictably does not agree with the proposals of the Ministry of Justice. The proposed course of action, according to the company, “goes far beyond the court’s decision on search distribution contracts,” and “a spinoff of Chrome or Android would violate it.” Billions of people get online thanks to Chrome and Android, which exist as free products, Google said, and only “a small number of companies have the ability and incentive to keep them open source and invest in them at the same level as we do.”