The US Department of Justice is expected to ask a judge to force Google to divest one or more of its core products, including its Chrome browser and Android mobile operating system, among the potential remedies to curb its power over online search.
The request, which is due to be filed later on Wednesday, will largely follow a framework outlined in prosecutors’ initial proposal last month, according to a source familiar with discussions between the US states and the DoJ, which together brought the underlying lawsuit against Google. In the initial proposal they set out a broad plan to compel Google to share users’ search data with rivals and restrict its ability to use search results to train new generative artificial intelligence models and products.
The “expansive solution” set to be put forward by the DoJ follows a ruling earlier this year by Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, which found that Google had developed an illegal monopoly in online search by spending billions of dollars on exclusive deals with wireless carriers, browser developers and device manufacturers, in particular Apple.