DOJ wants Google to sell Chrome and possibly Android, more

The Department of Justice on Wednesday shared what steps it wants a US judge to take after Google was found to have a monopoly over online search. 

The Justice Department wants Google to sell Chrome “to a buyer approved by the Plaintiffs in their sole discretion, subject to terms that the Court and Plaintiffs approve.” Additionally, Google will not be allowed to “release any other Google Browser during the term of this Final Judgment absent approval by the Court.”

The government is not asking for Google to sell Android right away, but it wants that option if other measures it imposes don’t work to restore competition. In general:

For the avoidance of doubt, Google must not provide itself with preferential access to Android or Google-owned apps or data as compared to the access it provides to all other GSEs and AI Products…

Google cannot:

• “make any Google GSE [general search engine], Search Text Ads, or AI Product (including on-device AI) mandatory on Android Devices”
• “reduce, prevent, or otherwise interfere with the distribution of rival GSE, Search Text Ads, or AI Products on Android Devices”

It suggests that “Google may elect to fully divest Android, to a buyer approved by the Plaintiffs in their sole discretion” if it doesn’t want to follow those measures.

Meanwhile, there are a series of other requests:

• Google cannot pay or offer “other commercial terms” to Apple and third-parties that disincentive them from making their own search engine or search text ads. Revenue share payments are also prohibited.
• Google has to make Search and ads data available to third-parties to allow for the creation of competitors. This “syndication of search results” must be in effect for 10 years.
• “Google must provide online Publishers, websites, and content creators an easily useable mechanism to selectively opt-out of having the content of their web pages or domains used in search indexing; used to train or fine-tune AI models, or AI Products”
  • “Google must not retaliate against any Publisher, website, or content creator who opts-out pursuant to this provision.”

Google next month will file its own proposals. After that (via Associated Press, The Verge), the DOJ, which will be overseen by a new administration at that point, will make another filing in March, with a court hearing in April before the judge delivers the final ruling before September 2025.

Google this evening called the proposal “extreme” and said it is “wildly overbroad.” The company takes issue with how it would:

• Endanger the security and privacy of millions of Americans, and undermine the quality of products people love, by forcing the sale of Chrome and potentially Android.
• Require disclosure to unknown foreign and domestic companies of not just Google’s innovations and results, but even more troublingly, Americans’ personal search queries.
• Chill our investment in artificial intelligence, perhaps the most important innovation of our time, where Google plays a leading role.
• Hurt innovative services, like Mozilla’s Firefox, whose businesses depend on charging Google for Search placement.
• Deliberately hobble people’s ability to access Google Search.
• Mandate government micromanagement of Google Search and other technologies by appointing a “Technical Committee” with enormous power over your online experience.