Google is trying to persuade judges in an antitrust case not to force the sale of its Chrome browser

Google LLC has proposed limiting its search partnerships to address antitrust violations in its search business, as an alternative to the U.S. Justice Department’s proposal to sell its Chrome browser.

Google Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland detailed the company’s suggestions for remedy in a blog post on Friday. It comes in response to a ruling by the US District Court for the District of Columbia in August that it runs an illegal monopoly across the search engine and search advertising markets.

The DOJ and the group of states that brought the case against Google suggested last month that Judge Amit Mehta should force it to sell the Chrome browser to fix the problems. In addition, they requested that Google be prevented from entering into standard search agreements with companies such as Apple In. They also want it to open up its search engine results to competing search companies and further request that it discontinue its Android operating system.

Mulholland said today that the DOJ’s proposal reflects an “interventionist agenda” that goes far beyond what the judge’s decision was actually about.

According to her, the main problem with the DOJ’s proposal is that it would actually hurt American consumers more and undermine the country’s global technology leadership by requiring it to share users’ private search queries with foreign and domestic rivals, limiting its ability to innovate and improve its capabilities. search algorithms.

Under her counter-proposal, Mulholland suggests that Google should be allowed to continue working with third parties like Apple in revenue-sharing agreements so that it can still be the default search engine on its devices. However, such agreements would instead be non-exclusive.

“We are not proposing these changes lightly,” Mulholland said. “They would impose a cost on our partners by regulating how they must go about choosing the best search engine for their customers. And they would impose burdensome restrictions and oversight on contracts that have reduced device prices and supported innovation in rival browsers , both of which have been good for consumers.”

Google also suggests giving Android device makers more flexibility to preload more search engine providers, and it would stop forcing them to preinstall apps like Google Search and Chrome.

Google’s search engine rivals, such as Microsoft Corp., which offers the Bing search engine, DuckDuckGo Inc., Qwant SE and Startpage BV would likely benefit greatly if they were forced to sell off Chrome, which has a dominant share of the web browser market. However, it’s still unclear how a possible Chrome spinoff would work.

Judge Amit Mehta has scheduled a court hearing in April, where both sides will have the opportunity to present their proposals on how to remedy the case, and a final decision is expected in August.

However, the matter may be complicated by a possible appeal. Google’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, said after the original ruling that the company intends to appeal the judge’s ruling, which could mean any remedy would be delayed by several years.

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