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After being convicted of search monopoly, will Google repeat Microsoft's fate of "splitting"? The US Department of Justice is considering a split

2024-08-14

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Google lost a major antitrust case that could determine its future and could face forced breakup.

On Tuesday, August 13, Eastern Time, the media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that after a U.S. court ruled that Google had a monopoly on the online search market, the U.S. Department of Justice is considering options to punish Google, including the rare move of splitting up Google. If the Department of Justice really seeks to impose this penalty, Google will face the danger of its core business being "split up" that Microsoft has faced for more than 20 years, becoming the first company in more than 20 years to be pushed by the U.S. government to be heavily fined for violating antitrust laws.

According to people familiar with the matter, if the Justice Department pushes forward with the split plan, the most likely units to be divested from Google are the Android operating system and the web browser Chrome. U.S. government officials are also considering forcing Google to sell its online advertising platform AdWords.

According to people familiar with the matter, the Justice Department's less severe penalty options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and taking measures to prevent Google from gaining an unfair advantage in artificial intelligence (AI) products. In any case, the Justice Department is likely to seek to prohibit Google from signing exclusive contracts with other companies, which is the core of the US government's lawsuit against Google. When the Justice Department opened the trial last year, it accused Google of paying more than $10 billion a year to Apple and other companies to maintain its default search engine status.

Last Monday, the U.S. Federal Court, finding that Google's search business violated US antitrust laws. This means that in the largest antitrust case in the US technology industry in more than 20 years, the plaintiff, the US Department of Justice, won the case. The way millions of Americans get information online may change dramatically, and Google's decades-long dominance in the search market may be overturned.

Judge Mehta announced that another trial will be held on September 4 to discuss and decide how to deal with Google's monopoly behavior, such as what kind of fines to impose on Google or what changes to require it to make. At that time, Google has the right to appeal, and experts predict that this legal process may take about two years.

AfterwardsIt is mentioned that the ruling against Google is strikingly similar to the antitrust case against Microsoft. Just as Microsoft was found guilty of violating the law for abusing its market dominance in the Windows operating system, Google is also facing legal sanctions. Judge Mehta cited the Microsoft case more than 20 years ago as a reference. Sam Weinstein, a law professor at Cardozo Law School who was once an antitrust lawyer for the Department of Justice, pointed out: "The (US) government has been explicitly and implicitly stating that they are building the legal basis for this case based on the Microsoft case."

In 1999, a federal court ruled that Microsoft had illegally exploited its Windows operating system to squeeze out competing browsers, including Netscape Navigator. A 2001 settlement forced Microsoft to stop disadvantage competitors in the personal computer business.

In June 2000, the court made a formal ruling requiring Microsoft to stop bundling sales. Even more fatally, it also planned to split Microsoft into two: one part operating the operating system business and the other part operating other software businesses. After initially losing the case, Microsoft appealed and eventually reached a settlement with the US Department of Justice, avoiding the fate of being split in two, but it still paid a high settlement fee and opened up some source code.

However, experts currently believe that Google is unlikely to be forced to break up. Some legal experts believe that the most likely outcome is that the court will require Google to cancel certain exclusive agreements, and the court may recommend that Google make it easier for users to switch to other search engines.

Last weekThe Justice Department outlined possible penalties it could ask a judge for, including:

  • Eliminate exclusive agreements Google has with Apple, Samsung, Firefox and others that make Google the default search provider on their devices or browsers.
  • Force Google to divest Android, because an independently operated Android system may have no incentive to promote Google Search.
  • Prevent Google from using its AI assets to consolidate its search dominance by requiring Google to allow competitors to train their AI using some of the assets that Google used to develop its AI.
  • Google faces penalties for its advertising technology and its app store for Android devices.