The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is still pushing to break up Google, according to a revised proposal filed Friday with federal Judge Amit Mehta. As in its proposal last year, the DOJ says Google should be forced to sell its web browser, Google Chrome, and potentially Android, as punishment for being a monopolist, as Judge Mehta found last year, reports The New York Times.
In its new filing, the DOJ calls Google “an economic goliath” that it says “has denied users of a basic American value—the ability to choose in the marketplace.” To deal with that, “Google must divest the Chrome browser … to provide an opportunity for a new rival to operate a significant gateway to search the internet.” The department also still recommends that Google must change its Android business practices to enable competition or be ordered to sell the operating system. It dropped a suggestion that the company be allowed to sell Android in lieu of making the changes.
Both spin-offs were part of the proposal the DOJ filed last year. But whether it would hold that line under Trump, whom tech companies have plied with money and praise since his election, has been a mystery. The President has stepped back some Biden-era tech regulations on things like AI safety and cryptocurrency, but has also suggested that the threat of regulation can be useful for getting the results he wants.
The department’s proposal eases up in some ways. The DOJ now supports letting Google pay Apple for services unrelated to search. It also no longer calls for Google to drop its AI investments — the Times writes that, instead, the DOJ reccomennds requiring the company to “notify federal and state officials before proceeding with investments in AI.”
Google filed its own proposal that doesn’t include selling Chrome but instead suggests the court place restrictions on the sorts of deals it can make, such as barring it from requiring that a phone maker that licenses Google Play also preinstall other Google software, like the Google Search app or Chrome. As noted by the Times, a hearing on the proposals is scheduled for April.
