Judge says Google does not need to sell Chrome, but will have to share data with rivals
Last year, a U.S. Judge ruled that Google had created an illegal monopoly in the search industry. The Justice Department had recommended severe remedies such as forcing Google to sell Chrome, and split Android away from the Mountain View company.
However, the antitrust trial seems to have taken a bizarre turn. A three-week hearing was held in April by Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Mehta's ruling bars Google from entering into exclusive contracts to distribute its software including Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app.
But, he allowed Google's partnerships to continue, which means it can continue to pay its partners for preloading or placement of Google search, Chrome and GenAI products. Apple earns a cool $20 Billion a year from its partnership with Google. This is also good news for Firefox, since Mozilla had admitted in its testimony it would be doomed without Google's money. It could have played a big role in this ruling.
As for Google Chrome's sale, the Judge stated that the Justice Department had overreached in seeking the forced divestiture of key assets (Chrome), which Google had not used to effect any illegal restraints. The Court said that it will not include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment.
The ruling says Google is not allowed to enter agreements that require the distribution, preloading, or placement of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or the Gemini app on devices, for licensing of the Play Store or any Google app. So, Android manufacturers won't need to preload all the apps to get their device verified for Play Store access? I think that's what it means. I wonder whether this will affect Google's upcoming sideloading restrictions. Google does not have to present users with choice screens on its products, nor does it have to ask its Android OEM partners to do the same. You can read the entire ruling on CourtListener.
The only remedy that was against Google's favor is that it is now required to share certain search index and user-interaction data to its competitors like Microsoft, DuckDuckGo, OpenAI, etc. Google wasn't happy with this, Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs, said that the company is concerned how these requirements will impact its users and their privacy. Bloomberg reports that the Judge has asked both parties to come back by September 10, with a new remedy proposal that is consistent with his ruling, or submit a status report about any disagreements.
Google seems to have gotten away big time. What are your thoughts about this?
This is the most laughable piece of hypocricy imaginable coming from Google: “he company is concerned how these requirements will impact its users and their privacy.”
Google, concrned about user privacy? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
“Justice” in the U.S. is purchased.
It would be most judicious to disassociate the Android operating system from Google. The future of Android is bleak under Google.
It’s not because the lights are green that you should cross the road without having a look left and right. In the same way it’s not because a company is entitled by court to maintain most of its privileges that you should consider the company has been validated to be trustworthy. Unless an angel appears to me saying “Go ahead son, you can trust that company” I’ll remain anchored to my positions: no Google here.
This court decision clearly proves that where there is money/a lot of money – there is no justice. For me, the USA is a 100% terrorist state. In its very short history, the USA may have had justice once, but there has been no justice for a long time, and there will never be. There is hardly anything left in the USA that is free for society. With this court decision, 100% corruption is evident, because even a crazy person would see that there is a monopoly, but not according to this court’s decision.
In other words – I do not trust either the Democrats or the Republicans – they call themselves such, but their policy is precisely corrupt. In the USA there is a law on lobbying. Lobbying means bribing someone to promote private interests. Lobbying = corruption. Essentially, corruption in the USA is a legal activity. So, is this normal?! In the USA, they do not even understand how their consciousness and understanding have been changed to such an extent that they do not distinguish between evil and good. I don’t even want to start the discussion that the US has a political commitment to discrimination against the white race…
They take your data, sell it to another company, and the person whose data was sold gets nothing. So, is this normal according to American courts?! It’s like the buyer of a car not giving the money to the seller of the car, but giving the money to a third party. So, is this normal?! Yes, they accept it as normal. That’s why I wrote that society in the US has long had a washed conscience and does not distinguish between good and evil.
They are all harvesting all our mined data and making lots of money off of it but giving none of that money to us whose mined data they selling. People need start demanding from google and everyone else that they must pay 80% of earned money to the owners from whom the data was mined. Every time they sell data, we get 80% of the earned money.
I’m relieved TBH. I wanted Google to retain Chrome, it’s been my most reliable browser for banking and commercial accounts over Edge. I use Google Workspace for most apps (short of Libre on PC) so like to keep integration. If it sold I’d trust it much less and go over to MS ecosystem (ugh). Also very glad Firefox retains it’s Google funding. I load Firefox down with privacy add-ons and it’s still the most secure for dodgy sites (short of something like Tails / live session). AI is currently wiping out any search result integrity so that value is dropping fast for users and Google. Not sure about enforced data sharing, seems like a further erosion of privacy.
Google got away with the preverbal slap on the wrist in this case. I think that this was a waste of taxpayers money taking Google to court and getting this sort of outcome. In any case the monopoly argument is mute because users are not forbidden to use other browsers or search engines. Google walks away probably very happy with this decision.