US weighs Google breakup in historic big tech antitrust case

European Union watchdogs similarly touted the option of a breakup of Google’s business

The effort is the most significant move to rein in a major tech company

The US Justice Department is considering asking a federal judge to force Google to sell off parts of its business in what would be a historic breakup of one of the world’s biggest tech companies.

Antitrust enforcers are weighing a breakup to mitigate the Alphabet Inc. business’s dominance in search, the agency said in a court filing on Tuesday. Judge Amit Mehta could also order Google to provide access to the underlying data it uses to build its search results and artificial intelligence products, it said.