The Justice Department cracks the whip: Can Google survive separation anxiety?

After declaring search engine giant Google a monopolist, the US Department of Justice has begun proposing solutions to correct the company’s illegal behavior and restore competition to the search engine market. Among the most stringent proposals is forcing the Alphabet company to divest parts of its business, such as its Chrome browser and Android operating system, in a bid to defund the tech giant. The verdict on remedial measures is expected to be announced by August 2025.

In the landmark case against the tech giant, a judge found that the company processes 90% of America’s Internet searches and restricts competition. The future course of this case will affect the way Americans find information on the Internet, while at the same time shrinking Google’s revenue and giving its competitors more room to grow. The US Justice Department said that reining in the Alphabet-owned company not only means taming its control over today’s distribution, but also ensuring that it cannot control tomorrow’s distribution.

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Plaintiffs have proposed behavioral and structural remedies to prevent Google from favoring its own products, such as Chrome, Play and Android, over competitors or new entrants. With stricter laws, it will not be able to exploit its dominance in these areas to the advantage of its search engine and related products, including new technologies such as artificial intelligence. The Justice Department could also ask the court to stop paying Google to have the search engine preinstalled or set as the default on new devices.

The tech giant paid significant annual fees, totaling $26.3 billion in 2021, to companies like Apple and other device makers. This is to ensure that the search engine remains the default option on smartphones and browsers and maintains its dominant market position.

In another case, a US judge recently ruled that Google must increase competition in its lucrative Play app store. This means it must allow Android apps to be distributed via competing sources.

The case against Google

The ongoing antitrust trial is the largest antitrust trial of the century targeting the company’s search business. As a result of the tech company’s unchecked and increasing dominance in the search space, two major antitrust lawsuits filed by the U.S. government have been dismissed, alleging that the company manipulated the market to maintain that dominance at the expense of competitors. The Alphabet-led company has been under surveillance by the US Department of Justice since October 2020.

The first lawsuit began in mid-September 2023 and ended in May 2024 with the announcement of closing arguments. The tech giant’s second trial, which focuses on advertising, began in September this year. The government presented its case and rested after about two weeks. The tech giant is accused of engaging in monopolistic behavior through strategic acquisitions of certain companies and control of the adtech industry’s most widely used tools and exchanges. This started with Google’s acquisition of advertising company DoubleClick in 2008.

A similar antitrust lawsuit was also filed against Microsoft at the turn of the century.

As the Justice Department considers tough penalties, Google plans to appeal, saying the proposals were radical and went far beyond the specific legal issues in the case. For its part, the technology company defended itself by saying that it had acquired users with quality and faced strong competition from Amazon and other websites. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company is the fourth largest company in the world with a market capitalization of over $2 trillion. The parent company Alphabet is under legal pressure from competitors and antitrust authorities.

In the US, antitrust regulators have filed a series of ambitious lawsuits against Big Tech companies over the past four years. These include Meta Platforms, Amazon.com and Apple due to maintaining monopolies. Governments around the world are also under increasing pressure to tame tech giants. However, due to the complexity of the case, it is unlikely that Google will soon be faced with a break-up order from the EU antitrust authority in Europe. As part of the ongoing EU antitrust investigation, the company offered to sell its advertising marketplace AdX earlier this year, but European publishers rejected the proposal as inadequate.

As lawmakers work hard to curb the increasing dominance of big tech companies, experts remain skeptical about the material impact. The tech giant’s shares haven’t taken a major hit, suggesting a real reckoning will take an eternity. Users are also likely to continue to prefer Google even if they have other options. An end to its long-standing dominance is not possible in a short time.