Google dodges forced selloff of Chrome browser in landmark antitrust case — sparking furor at slap on wrist | Latest Tech News
Google on Tuesday prevented a forced breakup of its online search monopoly after a federal decide rejected the harshest remedies proposed by the Justice Department — sparking furor from critics for the slap on the wrist in the landmark antitrust case.
US District Judge Amit Mehta said he wouldn’t require Google – which he had earlier dubbed a “monopolist” – to dump its Chrome web browser or its Android working system software program, as the feds had requested.
“Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints,” Mehta wrote in his court order.
US District Judge Amit Mehta is pictured. Getty Images
Instead, Mehta opted for a lighter contact in issuing his verdict in the trial’s remedy part, which included three weeks of hearings in April. He ordered Google to share its search data with rivals to increase competitors.
Google also can’t enter into exclusive offers for web search, but it gained’t be barred solely from making funds to Apple, AT&T and other companions to guarantee its search engine and other providers are set as the default option on most smartphones, Mehta ruled.
“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,” Mehta wrote.
The feds argued at trial that such offers have been important to sustaining Google’s monopoly.
Google prevented the DOJ’s harshest proposed remedies. Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images via GWN Connect
Google’s stock surged more than 6% in after-hours trading following the ruling’s release around 4:30 p.m.
Apple stock also up almost 4% in after-hours trading. Mehta’s ruling spares a $20 billion income stream for the struggling iPhone maker.
Matt Stoller, a outstanding antitrust advocate and Google critic, described Mehta’s choice as a “big whiff” and “weak.”
“Mehta just decided that the court can let Google keep its monopoly,” he wrote on X.
Other Big Tech watchdogs also slammed Mehta over the head-scratching ruling.
“You don’t find someone guilty of robbing a bank and then sentence him to writing a thank you note for the loot,” said Nidhi Hegde, govt director of the American Economic Liberties Project.
“Similarly, you don’t find Google liable for monopolization and then write a remedy that lets it protect its monopoly. This feckless remedy to the most storied case of monopolization of the past quarter century is a complete failure of his duty and must be appealed.”
Judge Mehta said there have been “strong reasons not to jolt the system.” REUTERS
Hegde called on the DOJ to appeal the choice.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately remark following Mehta’s written ruling.
Sacha Haworth, govt director of the Tech Oversight Project, said Mehta “was far more willing to let Google continue bending the internet and our economy to its will than enforcing the law.”
Mehta did write that the court might revisit his choice if the remedies aren’t efficient.
“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.”
Google is led by CEO Sundar Pichai. REUTERS
The ruling caps a five-year legal battle that had the potential to upend the web and dismantle the core of Google’s business. It was thought-about the most consequential Big Tech antitrust case in a long time.
Google had earlier vowed to appeal Mehta’s earlier ruling that it holds a monopoly.
Mehta’s ruling was largely in line with proposals made by the Big Tech giant, which had argued that any forced selloff of Chrome or Android would break them and might even threaten US national security.
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