DOJ's effort to break Google faces stiff challenges.
The Department of Justice wants to break up Google, which experts say is a drastic step that the case judge is unlikely to take. The DOJ stated in a court filing on Wednesday that if behavioral remedies fail to address Google’s anticompetitive behavior, the corporation must divest its search browser, Chrome, and potentially Android
According to the complaint, the DOJ also wants to restrict Google from holding or purchasing a stake in rival search companies or potential market entrants. The DOJ also recommended banning Google from self-preferencing and entering into exclusionary agreements with third parties. The agency also wants Google to provide data “critical to restoring competition” in the internet search industry.
District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who ruled in August that Google is a monopoly, will oversee the proposed remedies in the case. Despite Mehta’s decision, courts in antitrust disputes seldom break up monopolies, according to Erik Hovenkamp, an antitrust law expert at Cornell Law School, in a comment sent to TechTarget Editorial. If a court discovers a less intrusive means to stop a company’s anticompetitive behavior, “then it will opt for that simpler remedy,” he stated.
“Most judges really do not want to break up a large company like Google that generates a lot of popular and valuable products,” Hovenkamp told reporters. “They would much rather take a more surgical approach that excises the bad conduct while leaving the company itself intact.”
In response to the DOJ’s proposed remedies, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, stated that the DOJ is pursuing a “radical interventionist agenda” that would impair the United States’ worldwide technological leadership.
“DOJ’s wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the court’s decision,” Walker said in a statement. “It would break a range of Google products, even beyond search, that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.”
