Google Antitrust Trial: Will Chrome Be Sold To Crush Search Monopoly?

Google Antitrust trail

On Monday, Google, owned by Alphabet, faces a major trial in Washington, D.C., where U.S. authorities want to make the company sell its Chrome browser. This is part of an effort to increase competition in the online search engine market.

The U.S. Department of Justice is pushing forward after two big wins against Google. In August, a court ruled that Google unfairly controlled the search market. Last week, another court in Virginia decided Google illegally dominated online advertising technology.

The trial’s outcome could change how people access information online by reducing Google’s control over search.

Google plans to appeal the final decision. Lee-Anne Mulholland, a Google executive, wrote in a blog post that the government’s plan is too drastic and ignores careful legal guidelines set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The trial, led by Judge Amit Mehta, will last three weeks in the same courthouse where Meta is also facing an antitrust case about its purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp.

The Justice Department, along with 38 state attorneys general, wants big changes to open up the search market. They propose stopping Google’s exclusive deals, where it pays billions to companies like Apple to be the default search engine on phones and tablets. Google might also have to share its search results with competitors and could be forced to sell its Android system if other steps don’t work.

Prosecutors say Google’s default search deals block AI companies like Perplexity AI and OpenAI from growing. Witnesses from these companies will likely testify.

Google calls these demands extreme and says the court should only limit its default search agreements. The company, worth $1.9 trillion, says it supports browser companies like Mozilla with payments to stay the default search engine. Stopping these payments could hurt those companies and raise smartphone prices, Google claims.

Google will bring witnesses from Mozilla, Verizon, and Apple, which tried but failed to join the case. The company argues that few buyers of Chrome would keep its free, open-source code, which other browsers like Microsoft’s use as a foundation.

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