US considers asking court to break up Google amid competition case

Prosecutors have asked a judge to break the company up. Picture: AP

The US Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to force tech giant Google to sell parts of its business in order to eliminate its online search monopoly.

In a late court filing, US federal prosecutors also said the judge could ask the court to open the underlying data Google uses to power its ubiquitous search engine and artificial intelligence products to competitors.

Competition enforcers wrote in the court papers: “For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little to no incentive to compete for users.

“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow.”

Government over-reach in a fast-moving industry may have negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America's consumers

To that end, the department said it is considering asking for structural changes to stop Google from leveraging products such as its Chrome browser, Android operating system, AI products or app store to benefit its search business.

Prosecutors also seem to centre on Google’s default search agreements in the papers and said any remedy proposals would seek to limit or ban these deals.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in response to the filing that the Department of Justice was “already signalling requests that go far beyond the specific legal issues” in this case.

A judge is being asked to consider forcing Google to sell parts of the company (Andrew Matthews/PA)

She added: “Government over-reach in a fast-moving industry may have negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.”

US district judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google’s search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation.

He has outlined a timeline for a trial on the proposed remedies next spring and plans to issue a decision by August 2025.

Google has already said it plans to appeal Judge Mehta’s ruling, but the tech giant must wait until he finalises a remedy before doing so.

The appeals process could take as long as five years, predicts George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University who was the chief economist for the Justice Department’s antitrust division for most of the 1970s.