The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is demanding that Google sell Chrome, the most popular browser in the world, claiming the move would end the company's anti-competitive practices. DOJ's court filing consists of multiple steps that could potentially break Google's reign over the search, browser, and smartphone markets.
Google has published a blog post in response to the demand, stating that the DOJ's "staggering proposal" to break away Chrome from Google would not benefit consumers. Quite the opposite—the company believes doing so would hurt users and even "America's tech leadership:"
DOJ had a chance to propose remedies related to the issue in this case: search distribution agreements with Apple, Mozilla, smartphone OEMs, and wireless carriers.
Instead, DOJ chose to push a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership. DOJ’s wildly overbroad proposal goes miles beyond the Court’s decision. It would break a range of Google products — even beyond Search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives.
Google's Chief Legal Officer, Kent Walker, says that Google earned consumers' trust by delivering "the industry’s highest quality search engine," and breaking it apart from the company would put the privacy of Americans at risk by disclosing Google's tech, personal search requests, and other sensitive information. He also adds that killing search engine deals would harm other companies, such as Mozilla, which charges Google for making their search engine the default one.
Google is also not happy about the US government's outreach and plans to assign committees to oversee the company's approach to software design, such as a search engine selection screen.
In addition to openly expressing the company's frustration and discontent about the DOJ's demand, Google said that it would file its own proposal about addressing anti-competitive and monopoly concerns. The promised proposal is expected in December 2024.
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