The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing to take tough measures against Google for abusing its dominance in the search engine market.Among the proposals to be submitted to the court is forcing the technology giant to sell Chrome.
Competition Authority wants Google to sell Chrome
In August, a US judge ruled that Google had monopolised the search market. The Ministry of Justice, which took action following this decision, demanded that Google introduce new regulations on artificial intelligence, Android and data usage. However, the most striking step was the evaluation of the possibility of the company’s fragmentation.
Google Executive Lee-Anne Mulholland said in a statement that state intervention would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership. According to the latest data, Chrome is the most widely used internet browser with a market share of 64.61 per cent worldwide. Google dominated almost 90 per cent of the search engine market in the same period.
The judge’s decision was actually about Chrome being the default search engine on Android and Safari being the default search engine on iOS. It was stated that due to the multiple domains owned by Google, rival search engines fell behind and had difficulty competing with Google.
In an application filed in October, the Justice Department claimed that Google was using products such as Chrome, Play Store and Android to promote its own search engine and related products. They announced that they were considering various remedies, including the breakup of the company.
Google, on the other hand, said that the separation of divisions such as Chrome or Android would damage products, change business models and increase device costs. Accordingly, it stated that it would be weak against competing products such as iPhone and App Store.