The US government will ask a judge to force Google to sell its Chrome browser, according to Bloomberg. Such a sanction against the technology giant, found guilty of anti-competitive practices in the management of its famous search engine, would be historic.
The Justice Ministry also plans to demand measures regarding new generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools and its Android mobile operating system, according to anonymous sources close to the matter cited Monday by the news agency. Google was found guilty last summer of illegal practices to establish and maintain its monopoly in online search by Amit Mehta, a federal judge in Washington. The latter could decide on the sentence in August 2025, after receiving the official request from the authorities in November and hearing both parties during a special hearing in April.
The possibility of demanding a Google split marks a profound shift by U.S. competition authorities who have largely left the tech giants alone since their failure to break up Microsoft two decades ago. The ministry wants Google to divest itself of Chrome, the world’s most widely used internet browser, because it is a major access point to the search engine, undermining the chances of potential competitors. According to the StatCounter website, in September Google accounted for 90% of the global online search market and even 94% on smartphones.
Antitrust authorities are also expected to propose that Google unbundles Android from its other products, including the Google Play search engine and mobile app store, according to Bloomberg. The government also wants to act on the research results formulated by generative AI, the “AI Overviews” which directly answer users’ questions, without having to click on links.
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