Will Google be divided?
According to Bloomberg, division of the tech giant is just one — and the most radical — of the possible measures to reduce Google’s dominance. Others include forcing the company to share data with competitors and mechanisms to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in artificial intelligence. Federal prosecutors will also seek an injunction against the exclusivity agreements that Google has entered into with Apple, among others, to ensure that its search engine is the default option for users.
Such agreements were one reason a federal court in Washington, D.C., in a landmark ruling found Google guilty of illegally exploiting and maintaining a monopoly on the search engine and online advertising markets, ruling among other things that it harms consumers and stifles innovation.
The court still has to decide on a penalty and remedies. The U.S. Justice Department, which along with a number of state prosecutors filed the lawsuit against Google, has until September 4 to present its proposed solutions, with a hearing scheduled for September 6.
Selling Android or Chrome
According to the New York Times, among the options considered by federal prosecutors are: forcing Google to sell the part of the company responsible for the Android operating system or the Chrome browser. Such a scenario would not be the first in the history of antitrust proceedings. In the last case of such significance – against Microsoft 20 years ago – the court initially ordered the company to sell part of its empire, although an appeals court reversed that ruling. As the NYT notes, however, the ruling had long-term effects, reducing the company’s dominance and allowing rival companies – such as Google – to develop.
From Washington Oskar Górzyński (PAP)
