Online Google Search Monopoly, Does The United States Want to Split Google?

• Google monopolization case on online google search engine, government filings with court include proposal to split company.
• In August, District Judge Aman Mehta delivered a verdict in the Google search engine monopoly case and asked for suggestions on how to resolve the issue.
• Google pays around about billions of dollars to other technology companies to ensure their search engine remains the default.
• Google officially has announced to file an appeal (request) against Amit Mehta’s court decision.

One of the suggestions is, the United States (US) Justice Department is considering asking a federal judge to break up the company after ruling that Google Search Engine is an illegal monopoly, according to a court filing.

According to the Associated Press (AP), in court documents filed Tuesday night, government lawyers outlined possible steps the official government could take. These include restricting the way Google collects information from other websites to display its Artificial Intelligence (AI) results, and banning Google from giving billions of dollars to Apple and other companies.

Google pays these companies to keep Google search engine as the default search engine on their devices like iPhone.

The document filed on Tuesday is the first step in proposals to rebrand the company, which has been synonymous with search engines for decades.

The document stated that for decades, Google had established a complete monopoly over the most popular channels of information delivery on the Internet, due to which its competitors (such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple) had no interest in competing with Google for the benefit of consumers. In order to change these circumstances, it is necessary not only to eliminate Google’s control over this transmission, but also to ensure that Google cannot establish such a monopoly in the future, the court filing said.

In August of this year, United States (US) District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google’s search engine has been illegally taking advantage of its dominance in the field of technology, distorting competition and stifling any innovation. He gave a timeline for the resolution of the situation to make recommendations by next spring, and plans to rule on the case by August 2025.

The United States (US) Department of Justice will provide its detailed and powerful proposal in this regard by next month.

LeAnn Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, commented on the Justice Department’s court filing that the requests made by the administration are outside the legal issues raised in the case. He said the government’s overreaching of its authority would hurt America’s ability to innovate in this rapidly changing industry and impact American consumers.

Google says it will file an appeal against Amit Mehta’s decision. But for that, the company will have to wait for the agreement on these proposals. Cornell University law professor George Hay says the legal battle could take another five years to complete after the company goes to appeal. George Hay was the Chief Economist of the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice in the 1970s.

During the lengthy court trial in Washington, D.C., evidence often focused on the fact that Google had entered into agreements with other technology companies to ensure that Google remained the primary or default search engine for their users. . According to the testimony given in the trial, in 2021 alone, Google spent 26 billion dollars to maintain these agreements.

The story was taken from the Associated Press International news agency.