Google LLC has proposed imposing restrictions on its search partnerships to resolve antitrust violations in its search business. This proposal is an alternative to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) proposal to sell the Chrome browser.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Google, explained the proposal Friday. It followed a U.S. District Court ruling in August, which ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search engines and search advertising.
Last month, the DOJ and a group of states that brought the case proposed forcing Google to sell the Chrome browser. They also want Google to stop exclusive search agreements with companies such as Apple and to open its search results to competing search engines. In addition, they are demanding that Google spin off its Android operating system.
Mulholland criticized the DOJ’s proposal as “interference” beyond the court’s ruling. She argued that the proposal would harm consumers and undermine the U.S. technological edge because it would force Google to share user data with competitors. This, she says, would limit Google’s ability to innovate and improve search algorithms.
In her counterproposal, Mulholland suggests that Google should be allowed to retain partnerships such as with Apple, but on a non-exclusive basis. Also, Android manufacturers should be given more flexibility to pre-install multiple search engines, making Google stop mandating the installation of apps such as Google Search and Chrome.
Competing search engines such as Bing (Microsoft), DuckDuckGo and Qwant would benefit greatly from a possible sale of Chrome. However, how any breakup would play out is still unclear.
Judge Amit Mehta has scheduled an April hearing where both sides may present their proposals. A final decision is expected in August. Meanwhile, Google has announced it will appeal the original ruling, which could potentially delay the resolution for years.
Also read: U.S. DOJ is gunning for Google: what would a breakup mean?
Google / Google Chrome / search engines
"*" indicates required fields
According to Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, big tech companies’ spending fren…
Customers know they have to do something with AI. But what exactly? T…
Arm CEO Rene Haas on Monday downplayed the company’s ambitions to bec…
Salesforce just made Tableau Pulse available to the general public. T…
Qualcomm’s central processors are properly licensed under an agreement with Arm. This ruled the jury in a tri…
Italy’s privacy regulator is fining OpenAI 15 million euros. The ChatGPT maker has been found guilty of proce…
Apple has criticized Meta’s repeated requests for access to its software tools. Privacy and security risks, i…
Discover the essential strategies and imperatives to create a data an…
Some companies thrive in times of external uncertainty. They know how…
The IT department is currently under great pressure, partly because o…
As the software development life cycle becomes ever more complex and …
Techzine focusses on IT professionals and business decision makers by publishing the latest IT news and background stories. The goal is to help IT professionals get acquainted with new innovative products and services, but also to offer in-depth information to help them understand products and services better.
© 2024 Dolphin Publications B.V.
All rights reserved.
Français 
English