Google may have to sell off Chrome — but who could buy it?
“Which lawyers did Microsoft use for its antitrust case in 2000” — Google execs this morning, probably.
Done Searching
According to a report from Bloomberg yesterday, Department of Justice officials are planning to recommend that Amit Mehta — the US District Judge who ruled in August that Alphabet’s search giant holds an illegal monopoly over the market — force the company to sell off its Google Chrome browser, impose data-licensing requirements, and implement measures around the company’s Android operating system and burgeoning AI efforts.
Those recommendations show just how serious America’s antitrust authorities are about cracking down on Google’s dominance in the world of looking stuff up online. It’s the biggest antitrust action against Big Tech in the US since the United States vs. Microsoft Corp. case more than two decades ago (spoiler: Microsoft wasn’t broken up).
According to Statcounter, Google Chrome has a 67% share of the global web-browser market — way ahead of the next biggest competitor, Apple’s Safari, the default browser on every iPad and iPhone (unless users switch their settings).