Google dodges Chrome sale in antitrust case, must share data

Alphabet’s Google will be required to share online search data with rivals while avoiding harsher penalties, including the forced sale of its Chrome business, a judge ruled in the biggest US antitrust case in almost three decades.

Tuesday’s ruling represents a blow to the government, falling far short of the most severe remedies sought by antitrust enforcers after the court found Google illegally monopolised the search market. Judge Amit Mehta said he will bar Google from entering into exclusive contracts for distribution but would still allow the search giant to pay its partners — a key win for Apple Inc., which has received roughly $20 billion a year for making Google search the default on iPhones.

The finding follows the Washington, DC, judge’s ruling last year that Google illegally monopolised the markets for online search and search advertising. Mehta held a three-week hearing in April to determine a fix.

In a statement, Google praised the decision for recognising how AI has changed the search industry, but said the company continues to disagree with Mehta’s earlier ruling that it monopolised online search. The search giant also said it was worried about the data-sharing requirements the judge imposed.

“We have concerns about how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs. “The court did recognise that divesting Chrome and Android would have gone beyond the case’s focus on search distribution, and would have harmed consumers and our partners.”

Shares of Alphabet surged as much as 8.7% in extended trading following the release of the judge’s ruling. Apple shares climbed as much as 4.3%.

‘Better than feared’

“The ruling is far better than feared for Google,” said Nat Schindler, an analyst at Scotiabank.

The order is one of the most monumental court decisions affecting the tech sector in more than a quarter-century. It could offer a blueprint for other judges who may end up weighing similar choices in cases against Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, and Apple.

In another win for Google, the judge didn’t bar the company from making payments to third parties, including Apple, for default browser placement in browsers or on mobile devices.

“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban,” the judge wrote.

Sharing search data

Under the ruling, Google will be required to share some of its search data with competitors. Those competitors could include Microsoft Corp. and DuckDuckGo, as well as many of the new AI companies like OpenAI and Perplexity. That data would aid in building out competing search engines or artificial intelligence models.

The judge also ruled that Google can no longer require device makers to take all of its apps in order to access the Google Play Store on Android — a second modest win for the Justice Department in addition to the data-sharing requirement.

“Google is being held accountable,” DOJ antitrust head Gail Slater said in a post on X. “The court didn’t order all of our requested relief, and we are weighing our options. But the court did agree with the need for remedies that will restore competition and reopen the digital playing field, driving investment and innovation that will ensure America leads the next era of technology.”

But multiple Google opponents criticised the decision as not going far enough.

“We do not believe the remedies ordered by the court will force the changes necessary to adequately address Google’s illegal behaviour,” said DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg, who testified at the trial. “Google will still be allowed to continue to use its monopoly to hold back competitors, including in AI search.”

Allowing the payments for browser placement to continue is a win for Apple, which favors the Google search engine by giving it the best placement in Safari search bar on computer and mobile devices. Users can opt to switch to Microsoft Corp.’s Bing, DuckDuckGo and other options.

Allowing Google to keep making payments to Apple will give the iPhone maker a much needed reprieve for its services segment, which is already under fire globally from regulators trying to break up its $100 billion per year App Store business. The judge’s ruling indicates that the default arrangement can continue — with minor adjustments.

Alternative search engines

These include that Apple will need to better promote alternative search engines and make changes to its default search engine settings annually. The judge also ruled that users must be able to set a different default search engine for privacy mode, a request that Apple already addressed several months ago.

While Google can still pay Apple, Mehta said that could change. “For now, Google will be permitted to pay distributors for default placement. There are strong reasons not to jolt the system and to allow market forces to do the work,” Mehta wrote. But the judge said he’s “prepared to revisit a payment ban (or a lesser remedy) if competition is not substantially restored through the remedies the court does impose.”

Perplexity declined to comment. Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case against Google was initially filed in the final months of the first Trump administration. After a 10-week trial in 2023 shepherded by then-President Joe Biden’s Justice Department, Mehta sided with the government in August 2024. In his decision, Mehta said that Google illegally dominated the search market by paying more than $26 billion to Apple and other companies to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers.

To address the judge’s findings, the Justice Department proposed that Google be forced to sell its popular Chrome web browser and share some of the data it collects to create its search results. It also asked Mehta to ban Google from paying for search engine defaults — a bar that would also apply to Google’s AI products, including Gemini, which the government says were aided by the company’s illegal monopoly in search.

At the hearing this spring, Google argued that the government’s proposals were too extreme. The company said that the remedies would hurt America’s consumers, economy and position as a world leader in technology.

Justice Department ‘overreached’

Mehta said in his ruling that the government “overreached in seeking forced divestiture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints.”

The judge directed the two sides to come back by September 10 with a new remedy proposal consistent with his ruling or file a status report outlining any disagreements.

Google is facing another possible breakup in a second Justice Department case challenging its monopoly over technology used to buy, sell and display advertising around the web. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia ruled in favour of the government earlier this year and will hold a hearing in September to determine whether to force the company to sell tools used by websites selling ad space.

The case is US v. Google, 20-cv-3010, US District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

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