Google might need to be broken up to prevent it from capitalizing on its illegal monopolies in search and online ads, the Department of Justice says in a filing with a federal court that in August found the tech giant guilty of antitrust violations.
“Plaintiffs are considering [recommending] behavioral and structural remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products and features,” DOJ says in its October 8 filing.
The filing serves notice that DOJ is thinking broadly about what it will propose next year as Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia weighs what remedy to hand down after finding Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta said in his August ruling.
DOJ says it’s appropriate to think broadly about remedies because otherwise Google could continue to illegally monopolize the search and online ad markets.
“The scope of the remedy need not be limited to the specific means or methods of how Google achieved that illegal monopoly,” DOJ says. The agency’s antitrust chief is Jonathan Kanter, pictured above.
Other remedies it’s considering would try to end the stranglehold Google has on search distribution. The court found that the company has used deals with Apple and others to get its search function embedded into their devices, including the iPhone.
“For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little-to-no incentive to compete for users,” DOJ says.
The agency is thinking about tackling this dominance by putting some kind of block on Google’s ability to enter into default agreements, pre-installation agreements, and other revenue-sharing agreements with companies so it can no longer have search exclusivity on their devices.
DOJ is also looking at ways to cut Google’s advantage over others in the performance of its search results. The agency sees tackling this advantage as appropriate since the company leveraged its illegal monopoly to generate the kind of data and other resources – indexes, feeds and models – that has enabled it to boost the performance of its search results.
“Google’s unlawful behavior has enabled it to accumulate and use data at the expense of rivals,” the agency says.
One remedy might be to require the company to share with others the data it has generated from searches, along with the indexes, feeds and models it uses to generate them.
The aim is to “offset this advantage,” the agency says.
Any data Google can’t share with other companies without raising privacy issues it would have to delete.
In a statement, Google calls the remedies that DOJ is thinking about “radical” and plans to appeal the August ruling.
“This case is about a set of search distribution contracts,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in a blog post. “Rather than focus on that, the government seems to be pursuing a sweeping agenda that will impact numerous industries and products, with significant unintended consequences for consumers, businesses and American competitiveness.”
Analysts say the idea of breaking up Google, should DOJ pursue that, is probably a non-starter. More likely, the court will look favorably on DOJ’s proposal to end the exclusive agreements the company has with Apple and others and to make it easier for people to use search engines other than Google’s, CNBC reported based on the remedies that were applied some 25 years ago when DOJ went after Microsoft on antitrust grounds in the browser market.
DOJ said it plans to offer its final recommendations in May. Mehta said he plans to issue his ruling on remedies in August.
