The U.S. Department of Justice is considering forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser

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After the tech giant Google lost the antitrust lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice plans to push it to sell its Chrome browser and untie the Android operating system from the Google Play Store.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking Judge Amit P. Mehta, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to take measures to require Google to sell its Chrome browser. At the same time, the Department of Justice also hopes to impose restrictions on Google in areas such as data licensing and AI (artificial intelligence).

If Google is really required to split its browser, it will be the largest U.S. company split since the U.S. telecommunications company AT&T was split in 1984, dealing a historic blow to Google. According to data from StatCounter, a web traffic analysis service, Chrome currently has a market share of about 61% in the United States.

Chrome is key to Google’s core advertising business. Google’s parent company Alphabet’s third-quarter 2024 financial report ending September 30 showed that during the reporting period, Google’s advertising business grew from $59.647 billion last year to $65.854 billion, higher than market expectations. In addition, Google is also using Chrome to direct users to its AI big model Gemini.

According to people familiar with the matter, the Justice Department’s antitrust officials have given up forcing Google to sell the Android operating system. The relevant lawyers have met with dozens of companies in the past three months and decided to ask Google to sell Chrome. However, if the remedy can effectively control Google’s monopoly on the market in other aspects, the Justice Department can decide whether it is necessary to sell Chrome later.

At the same time, the Justice Department will recommend that Judge Mehta impose data licensing requirements on Google, ordering Google to authorize the search results and data of its search engine, and provide other websites with more options so that they can prevent Google’s AI products from using their own data. In addition, the Justice Department hopes that Google will separate the Android operating system from other products including search and Google Play mobile application store, and no longer bundle them.

Bloomberg Industry Research Analyst (Mandeep Singh) believes that it is “extremely unlikely” that Google will be forced to sell the Chrome browser. However, Singh said that if this happens, AI big model manufacturers such as OpenAI may become buyers of Chrome to expand their business.

Mark Gurman also said on the X (original Twitter) platform that forcing Google to sell Chrome is “ridiculous”, and the suggestion to split the Android operating system and Google Play is also ridiculous: “Chrome is worth billions of dollars to Google, but it is not the case on the open market. Any company that buys it will only create a new monopoly.”