Will Google be forced to break up? A search giant may be required if the US Department of Justice has its way.
Summer, Google is lost a major antitrust case from the US Department of Justice in which the judge who presided over the case, US District Judge Amit Mehta, considered the search giant “an individual.”
At the time, the judge did not decide what would happen to Google as a result of the lawsuit. Google and the DOJ have been asked to come up with solutions to fix the company’s antitrust problems.
This week, the DOJ sent yours suggestionswith a key that calls for the separation of Google Chrome and Android.
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The DOJ wants to break up Google
“Plaintiffs are considering moral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products like Chrome, Play, and Android to benefit Google search and Google search-related products and features—including emerging search access points and features, such as artificial intelligence— more. competitors or new entrants,” the DOJ wrote.
The DOJ filing then cites the court’s findings that Google’s control of the Chrome browser with Google search set as the default on Android devices “has significantly reduced the available distribution channels and thus made the emergence of new competition indiscriminate.”
As can be seen in the filing, while the DOJ proposes to separate Chrome from Android, it also proposes some additional measures.
Arguably, the action with the most significant impact on Google would be the DOJ’s proposal to limit Google’s agreements with third parties regarding the search giant’s automatic dominance. Apple, for example, has an agreement with Google to make Google Search the default search engine in the iPhone’s Safari web browser. In turn, Google you pay Apple is 20 billion dollars a year.
The DOJ says Google must also provide its search engine with “indexes, data, feeds, and models” to its competitors via an API to ensure fair competition.
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Additionally, the DOJ wants to set limits on how Google crawls third-party websites and uses its data to train AI and display third-party content in search results. Websites should be able to opt out of this, the installation says.
The DOJ is also taking on Google’s advertising business and recommending that the company share more data with advertisers giving them more control over where their ads appear. The DOJ also suggests that Google offers options for ads to run outside of its search engine product.
Google is responding
Google has already responded to the DOJ’s suggestions, with the company’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland writing a letter. public response.
“DOJ’s tough and sweeping proposals risk harming consumers, businesses, and developers,” reads the title of Mulholland’s post on Google’s official blog.
Mulholland highlights a DOJ proposal that could prove to have more ramifications for users than Google the company itself.
“Forcing Google to share your search queries, clicks, and results with your competitors puts your privacy and security at risk,” he wrote, referring to the DOJ’s proposal that Google share its search data with competitors to level the playing field. “The search queries you share with Google are often sensitive and personal and are protected by Google’s strict security standards; in the hands of a third-party company that doesn’t have strong security practices, bad actors can access them to identify you and your search history.”
However, it should be noted that the DOJ addressed this concern in its filing. The DOJ said it is “mindful” of users’ privacy concerns and that those should be taken into account, but that private user data should be separated from data that ensures Google maintains its market dominance.
Mulholland also addressed the DOJ’s major proposal to keep Chrome and Android separate, saying it would create confusion and make things more difficult for users and third-party developers alike.
“Diversification will change business models, increase device costs, and undermine Android and Google Play in their fierce competition with the iPhone and Apple’s App Store,” Mulholland wrote. “What’s more: Because Android and Chrome are used by so many developers and device makers in all different industries – from cars to fitness devices to TVs to laptops to apps and more – the changes could affect many businesses and the people who use their services .”
Regarding the DOJ’s proposals to put some restrictions on Google’s use of AI, Mulholland emphasized the general attitude of Silicon Valley when it comes to AI regulation – that those rules will “disrupt” innovation.
So, what should users expect? None, yet. Google plans to take its arguments to court, and like any legal battle, it should take a while before any concrete steps are taken.