The US Department of Justice and Google are facing off in court over allegations that the company is illegally maintaining its dominance in the search engine market. The DOJ is advocating for Google to sell off some of its key assets, including its Chrome browser. The hearings began April 22 and are expected to last three weeks, with the second week coming to an end Friday.
The Chrome proposal has attracted interest from several tech companies, including OpenAI, Perplexity AI and Yahoo, all expressing willingness to purchase Chrome should the court mandate its sale.
The case could change how tech companies do business, as well as how people find answers to their online search queries. Government lawyers
made their case
in opening statements, saying Google should be forced to sell Chrome, its web browser, which pushes people to the Google search engine.
Justice Department lawyer David Dahlquist said at the time that Google should also be forced to help rival search engines that it has unfairly kept out of competition.
“This is the time for the court to tell Google and all other monopolists who are out there listening, and they are listening, that there are consequences when you break the antitrust laws,” Dahlquist said,
according to
The New York Times.
Google counters
Google’s lawyers say any remedies should only consider Google’s deals with companies such as Apple, Mozilla and Samsung to make it the default search engine for smartphones and other devices.
“Google won its place in the market fair and square,” said Google attorney John Schmidtlein,
according to
NBC News.
Judge Amit P. Mehta, of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, is now hearing arguments, and executives from major tech and artificial intelligence companies have been testifying.
After Mehta hears arguments, he’s expected to order remedies by the end of summer.
Google is currently the king of online search, with more than 89% global market share,
according to
GlobalStats, down slightly from 91% last summer.
A representative for Google referred kacito the
company’s online statement
from before the hearings began. In it, company Vice President Lee-Anne Mulholland says such sweeping remedies would harm America’s economy.
Mulholland calls the action “a backwards-looking case” and says the DOJ proposal would make it harder for users to get to preferred services, would prevent the company from competing fairly and would force Google to share users’ private search queries with other companies.
OpenAI, Perplexity and Yahoo want to buy Chrome
Early in the trial, OpenAI executive Nick Turley testified that his company would be interested in buying the Google Chrome browser if Google is forced to sell it.
He also said,
according to
Reuters, that ChatGPT, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot, is “years away from its goal of being able to use its own search technology to answer 80% of queries.” Turley also testified that Google declined an attempt by OpenAI to use Google search technology within ChatGPT.
Two other companies have also expressed interest in buying Chrome: Perplexity AI and Yahoo.
In court, Perplexity’s chief business officer, Dmitry Shevelenko,
voiced his company’s interest in buying Chrome
.
Yahoo’s general manager of search, Brian Provost, also
testified that his company is interested
in acquiring Chrome. Yahoo has been developing its own browser prototype but believes purchasing Chrome is a faster route to increasing its search market share,
according to
The Verge.
DOJ launches second antitrust push against Google
In a
parallel antitrust push
, the DOJ is also pressing for Google to break up its digital advertising business, including a forced sale of its publisher ad server business and ad exchange tools, a move the agency says would restore fairness to the online ad market.
According to
the DOJ, the tech giant relied on unlawful tactics to shut out rivals in the digital ad markets where online ads are bought and sold.
US District Judge Leonie Brinkema set the trial date for Sept. 22 after hearing arguments from both Google and the Justice Department on possible remedies in the case. The company maintains that these divestitures would hurt publishers and ultimately harm internet users.
Potential outcomes
Many things could happen to Google, including a breakup of the company. If such a penalty were instituted, it might involve breaking off the company’s Chrome browser or
Android smartphone
operating system divisions.
The DOJ wants to prohibit Google from entering into exclusive agreements that make its search engine the default on devices and browsers. The DOJ also wants Google to share certain user data with competitors to level the playing field.
This would be the government’s first attempt to dismantle a company over illegal-monopolization concerns since its unsuccessful efforts to
break up Microsoft
two decades ago.
Google could also be forced to make its data available to competitors or abandon the economic deals that made the Google search engine the default on devices such as the
iPhone
.
Could Google settle?
“My gut feeling is Google will settle with some compromises,” Chirag Shah, a professor at the Information School at the University of Washington, told kaci. “There are three big things on the negotiating table: the Chrome browser, Google’s deals with Apple and others for the default search engine spot, and the ad market where Google has a monopoly and tons of data. I don’t think the FTC is going to get it all,” Shah said, referring to the US Federal Trade Commission, “so the question is, What would be a worthy settlement for both sides?”
OpenAI, Microsoft and Apple have all benefited from Google’s prominence but also directly compete with the search giant, Shah said, dubbing them “frenemies.”
Then there are companies like DuckDuckGo, which offers a
privacy-minded search engine
. For a long time, search engines like that have been boxed out by Google’s dominance. Shah said he wonders how much attention is being paid to that now.
Google, though, remains the giant gorilla of the search world, he said.
“As far as the traditional search goes, yes, Google is practically the only player,” Shah said. “When you have a market share of 90%, I don’t know how else to describe it. There are not many product categories where such an imbalance exists. It’s also a very tough space to get [into] as a newcomer and survive. Dozens of companies have come and gone, and I don’t see anyone in the near future being able to break through that.”
Why does this all matter?
Google is not the only company facing legal issues. Major tech companies Apple and Amazon are also facing antitrust lawsuits. An
antitrust trial against Meta
, owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp, began April 14.
The Google trial could also affect the burgeoning artificial intelligence era. The
Justice Department has said
that if remedies aren’t imposed on Google, it expects the company to use its AI products to further extend its monopoly.
Also, since the August trial, presidential administrations have changed. As The New York Times notes, the hearings signal that the Trump administration intends to keep an eye on the changing tech industry.
Do people switch from default search engines?
The August case focused on Google paying Apple and other companies to make its search engine the default on devices such as Apple’s iPhone. Google has said it didn’t maintain a monopoly through such agreements and that consumers could change their device defaults to use other search engines.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
testified in October
that the idea that people shift from one search engine to another is “completely bogus” and added “defaults is the only thing that matters in changing search behavior.”
According to the Justice Department, the Google search engine is used for nearly 90% of web searches, but the company disputes that number, the Times reported.
The
Sherman Antitrust Act
, which dates to 1890, prohibits activities restricting interstate commerce and competition in the marketplace, essentially outlawing corporate monopolies. It’s the cornerstone of US antitrust legislation, leading to the federal government’s breakup of late 19th century Gilded Age industrial giants.
kaci’s Imad Khan contributed to this report.
First published on May 2, 2025 at 4:52 p.m. PT.