US considers a rare antitrust move: breaking up Google to address search monopoly

The Justice Department and state attorneys general are discussing various scenarios to remedy Google’s dominance in online search, including a breakup of the company. Google was found last week to have violated antitrust law by illegally maintaining a monopoly in internet search. Now discussions over how to fix those violations have begun, the New York Times reports.

A rare bid to break up Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

According to Bloomberg, the move would be Washington’s first push to dismantle a company for illegal monopolization since unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago. 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 people, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

The government will likely seek a ban on the type of exclusive contracts that were at the center of its case against Google. If the Justice Department pushes ahead with a breakup plan, the most likely units for divestment are the Android operating system and Google’s web browser Chrome, said the people. Officials are also looking at trying to force a possible sale of AdWords, the platform the company uses to sell text advertising, one of the people said.

The government is meeting with other companies and experts to discuss their proposals for limiting Google’s power, the people said.

The deliberations are in their early stages. Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has asked the Justice Department and Google to come up with a process for determining a fix in the case by Sept. 4. He has scheduled a hearing on Sept. 6 to discuss next steps.