DoJ Considers Google Breakup After Landmark Monopoly Ruling

The United States is considering a rare antitrust option that could entail the corporate breakup of Alphabet’s Google.

Bloomberg reported that the breakup of Google is one of the options being considering by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) after the landmark ruling earlier this month by judge Amit Mehta, who stated “the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.”

Judge Mehta found that Google had violated antitrust law by spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world’s default search engine.

The ruling was a significant win for US antitrust authorities, after they filed a series of lawsuits against the biggest tech firms over the past four years.

Google breakup?

Over a week since that landmark verdict, Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the deliberations, reported that a bid to break up Alphabet’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department.

This breakup (if it were to ever happen) would be the first time that US antitrust enforcers have utilised that option, since their unsuccessful attempt to break up Microsoft two decades ago (Microsoft had settled with the DoJ in 2004 over claims it forced its Internet Explorer browser on Windows users.).

Other less severe options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, said the Bloomberg sources, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

Another possible remedy could see Google being forced to divest itself of the Android operating system – an option that, according to Bloomberg, is most frequently discussed by justice department attorneys.

Another potential remedy could see Google being forced to sell AdWords, Google’s search ad program.

Another possible option is the divestment of its Chrome web browser.

This case however is far from over, with appeals possible to the DC Circuit and US Supreme Courts. This would likely see the case continue into 2025 and possibly 2026.

Alphabet has said it plans to appeal the ruling.

A separate case against Google over its advertising technology is scheduled for trial in September.

Antitrust lawsuit

The DoJ had filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolising search and search advertising back in 2020.

Google also faces another antitrust lawsuit, after the DoJ, along with a number of Attorneys Generals from US states filed a civil antitrust suit against Google for monopolising multiple digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act in January 2022.

The Google antitrust trial began on 12 September 2023 to November of last year and concluded with closing statements in May 2024.

It saw Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella testify that “everybody talks about the open web, but there is really the Google web.”

“Google is winning because it’s better,” Google lawyer John Schmidtlein said in closing statements earlier this year.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai had defended the huge amounts of money it pays to Apple and others to ensure that its search engine is the default search engine on their products.

Indeed it was reported that Google paid Apple $26 billion in 2021 to make its search engine default option.

In November 2023 Pichai confirmed that Google pays Apple 36 percent of Safari search revenue, under the terms of the default search agreement.