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US government considering Google break up
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The US government is mulling over a full on break up of Google along product lines in a bid to counter the company’s alleged monopolistic practices.
In the wake of a US court rulingback in Augustthat Google was indeed an anti-competitive monopoly, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) has put forward some proposals to counter the search giant’s influence.
Contained within anew filingis the mention of potential “behavioral and structural remedies” that the DoJ might apply to prevent the company from using Chrome, Play, and Android to advantage Google Search.
The filing mentions that the dominant Chrome browser comes with Google search set to the default, which “significantly narrows the available channels of distribution and thus disincentivizes the emergence of new competition”.
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It also points out that the Google Play Store is a “must-have on all Android devices”. We’ve all seen the effect that being cut off from the Play Store has and Google’s services has had onHuawei’s smartphone fortunesin recent years.
In effect, the DoJ’s mention of “structural” changes would mean breaking Google up between some the aforementioned core products, likely splitting off the likes of Chrome or Android.
Other proposals would involve blocking Google from paying for search engine priority on Apple’s iPhones, or forcing Google to contribute to educational initiatives to instruct users on the best search engine for them,
Needless to say, Google is not too happy with the severe proposals being made here. It issued a swiftly issuedblog posttitled ‘DOJ’s radical and sweeping proposals risk hurting consumers, businesses, and developers’.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, claims that the DoJ’s proposals “go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.”
She states that breaking off Chrome or Android from the rest of Google’s services would fundamentally break them. Meanwhile, forcing Google to share a user’s search queries could potentially risk their privacy and security.
The DoJ will propose more detailed proposals by November 20, while Google gets an extra month (til December 20) to put forward its own less stringent suggestions.
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Jon is a seasoned freelance writer who started covering games and apps in 2007 before expanding into smartphones and consumer tech, dabbling in lifestyle and media coverage along the way. Besides bein…
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
