Perplexity has announced its readiness to buy the Chrome browser if a court forces Google to sell it. At the same time, the company emphasizes that it would be preferable for the product to remain in the Google ecosystem than to end up under the control of OpenAI, since this could threaten the openness and stability of the Chromium project.
Image source: Perplexity
Dmitry Shevelenko, Perplexity’s chief business officer, said he was reluctant to testify in Google’s antitrust case for fear of repercussions from the company. But after receiving a subpoena, he showed up to court, where he used his testimony to pitch a potential deal: a buyout of the Chrome browser by his company. The case is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, presided over by Judge Amit Mehta, who is considering what action could be taken if Google is found guilty of abusing its dominant position in the search market.
If the court accepts the position of the US Department of Justice, Google will be forced to spin off Chrome into a separate company. The potential split could include not only Chrome itself, but also its open version, Chromium. Google calls such a measure dangerous in court documents, arguing that the transfer of control could lead to the cessation of development, a decrease in quality, or the beginning of monetization of the product, which would affect the entire web browser market, including third-party projects dependent on Chromium.
During his testimony, Shevelenko expressed confidence that Perplexity would be able to manage the Chrome browser without degrading its quality or monetization. When asked by his attorney if he thought anyone other than Google could scale the product to its current level, he replied, “I think we could.” Perplexity expressed a willingness to provide stable and open support for the browser if the need arose.
This isn’t the first time Perplexity has announced its intention to acquire a key tech product. The company has previously expressed interest in buying TikTok, a platform that could be banned in the U.S. over concerns about its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance. Although Perplexity was founded less than three years ago, it has been actively involved in deal discussions amid pressure from U.S. regulators on tech giants.
Shevelenko also presented a list of the problems Perplexity faces in the context of Google’s dominance on mobile platforms. He pointed out that setting up Perplexity as the default voice assistant on Android requires going through many steps. He himself, as he admitted, had to resort to the help of a colleague to complete the setup, since he has been using an iPhone for a long time. Even after setting it as the default, the user needs to activate the assistant manually, while Google Assistant is launched by voice command.
During his testimony, Shevelenko described negotiations with several U.S. smartphone makers about the possibility of preinstalling Perplexity as the default search engine or assistant. However, the deals fell through. He noted that one manufacturer backed out of the deal because it feared losing revenue share from its partnership with Google. According to Shevelenko, these contracts put the companies in a position where any action not cleared with Google could result in a reduction in payments. “They basically have a gun to their head,” he said.
Judge Mehta previously found that Google used exclusivity agreements with phone and browser makers to restrict distribution of competitors. Such contracts prohibit manufacturers from pre-installing alternative services, which blocks Perplexity at the distribution level. Shevelenko cited the example of a manufacturer, Motorola according to public records, that agreed to pre-install Perplexity but not make it the default assistant. Both sides tried to find technical and legal ways to circumvent the restrictions, but were unable to go beyond the terms dictated by Google.