Business US considers breaking up Google after illegal monopoly ruling, reports say - A week after a judge ruled the tech giant illegally monopolized the online search market, the US Department of Justice is considering options that include breaking up Alphabet’s Google, worth some $2tn.

Google is planning to appeal the ruling that it violated antitrust laws to build a search monopoly. Photograph: Juliana Yamada/AP

A week after a judge ruled the tech giant illegally monopolized the online search market, the US Department of Justice is considering options that include breaking up Alphabet’s Google, worth some $2tn, according to reports from the New York Times and Bloomberg News.

Divesting the Android operating system was one of the remedies most frequently discussed by justice department attorneys, the reports said.

Officials were also considering trying to force a possible sale of AdWords, Google’s search ad program, and a possible divestment of its Chrome web browser, according to the reports.

A justice department spokesperson said it was evaluating the court’s decision and would assess the appropriate next steps consistent with the court’s direction and the applicable legal framework for antitrust remedies.

The spokesperson said no decisions had yet been made. A Google spokesperson declined to comment. Google is planning to appeal the ruling. It faces another antitrust suit by the US justice department set to go to trial next month.

The justice department’s other options include forcing Google to share data with competitors and instating measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, the reports said, citing people familiar with the matter.

During the trial, it was revealed that Google paid companies, including Apple, more than $26bn in 2021 alone to remain the default option for search in Safari. Those deals allowed Google to build a monopoly over search and unfairly suppress competition, the judge found.

Shortly after the judge made his ruling, the competing search engine DuckDuckGo proposed banning those exclusive agreements.

The verdict, delivered last week, held that Google violated antitrust law, spending billions of dollars to create an illegal monopoly and become the world’s default search engine. The ruling is seen as the first big win for federal authorities taking on the market dominance of big tech.

Federal antitrust regulators have sued Meta Platforms, Amazon.com and Apple in the past four years, claiming the companies illegally maintained monopolies.

Microsoft had settled with the justice department in 2004 on claims it forced its Internet Explorer web browser on Windows users.

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[John Badman]

Good fuck them. But also now we’re going to get a bunch of little project subsidies with bloated funding. Basically a bunch of AT&Ts

 

[OrionBalls]

It was always just a matter of time. But don't forget, Bell Atlantic became Verizon. ETA: And Bell South became AT&T.

 

[Crex Crex]

Now do it with Disney, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.

 

[Amerikaner Teddybär]

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

Please let this become reality. I hope that Youtube dies soon

 

[Shroom King]

I hope Google's top management resists, and gets the Waco treatment by the Feds.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

I hope that Youtube dies soon

What if YT went back to what it was like in the '00s before Google took over?

 

[Toji Suzuhara]

What if YT went back to what it was like in the '00s before Google took over?

Not gonna happen, and even then, there would be a precedent of Youtube being a shitty platform, as well as the fact that most deleated/banned videos and channels will stay that way

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

It sounds to me like threats from the establishment against Google if they lose. Similar on how they purged Hollywood after Hillary lost

 

[Nine year old waifu]

Apple

What's your reason for Apple? I understand the others, but Apple does not really seem to have a monopoly? (Although they need to open their software more. Not pre-install all their own things, etc.. )

 

[Mikoyan]

I was reading some local Bell Operating Company newsletters at my state library a while back.

That breakup came after a looooooooong court case. And even then there was a lot of debating and horse trading about who got what and how the breakup would happen. They were talking in 1980 about stuff that wouldn't happen for years yet. This doesn't sounds like that kind of thoughtful deal.

But then again not even Google has the stranglehold on making the American economy work that ol' Bell did.

 

[Happy Fish]

I think it is funny that the discussion isn't breaking up Alphabet in general.

 

[Gorton Colu]

The government going after "monopolies" is kabuki theater. These companies could not become as big and dominant as they are without government patronage and regulatory protection in the first place.

While they're at it breaking up big Goog, they should break up themselves, the federal government, too. They too hold a monopoly and prevent competition.

 

[dick brain]

Translated: millionaires shake down billionaires for bigger bribes.

 

[Goofy Logic]

This seems to be a "you have outlived your usefulness" scenario. The tech industry is in a period of stagnation, and Google is starting to lose influence to other forms of internet service. Now that a recession is on the horizon and the elite are starting to panic, the knives are out.

 

[Oil Olive]

I can imagine 3 different scenarios:

1.- Someone in power has ideals and morals and is putting them to work (HAHA LOL). Now do something about the other ones nigga

2.- Google is getting out of control and they need to remind them that theyre still under the law

3.- Someone in power was paid a shit ton of money from a google rival and they're finally categorizing it as the monopoly it is

 

[Xarpho's Return]

It was always just a matter of time. But don't forget, Bell Atlantic became Verizon. ETA: And Bell South became AT&T.

Maybe eventually. The "Baby Bells" in launched January 1, 1984 were Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell, and US West, along the remaining portion of AT&T (long-distance, Bell Labs, Western Electric). 10 years forward all were intact, and even if some of those terms expired in ten years, it wasn't immediate. Fast forward another ten years and Southwestern Bell became SBC Communications and snatched up two of them in the late 1990s (Ameritech and Pacific Telesis) with AT&T in 2005, grabbing BellSouth in 2006. NYNEX and Bell Atlantic merged, then bought GTE to become Verizon. What's left of US West is now split between CenturyLink and Comcast.

That breakup came after a looooooooong court case. And even then there was a lot of debating and horse trading about who got what and how the breakup would happen. They were talking in 1980 about stuff that wouldn't happen for years yet. This doesn't sounds like that kind of thoughtful deal.

Yeah, there was back and forth deals since the 1950s or 1960s. The first time the government thought about it, they basically countered by saying they did a bunch for the government and got them to back off, then they gave up their patents but they still had a near-lock on the whole phone system.

The question would be how to break up Alphabet. The government initially wanted AT&T to give up Western Electric because of the whole vertical integration angle, they compromised by spinning off the entire Bell Operating System.

Alphabet, like AT&T, has a bunch of subsidiaries. Nearly all of AT&T's divisions were profitable, so they could carve out the "Baby Bell" companies and all of them, including AT&T, could make money.

The problem is that Alphabet's subsidiaries, except for Google, are just venture-funded money pits and money-losing pet projects. Google Fiber I believe still needs outside funding, and X Development is another loser run by people with connections rather than brains. Bell Labs had smart people and made some of the 20th century's greatest technology. Who knows how much money X Development has wasted to find that, yes, teleportation is not feasible because it violates the rules of physics?

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Break them up and use this as precedence to break up the other monopolies.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

Break them up and use this as precedence to break up the other monopolies.

The issue with monopolies is more that they ladder pull like the biggest cunt in existence. Where they encourage legislation that doesn’t just prevent competition with fines, but criminalize it.

Anytime you look at breaking up a monopoly you need to audit what legislation and people they donated and demand internal logs about why they did “x”.