News + Trends
Monopoly position: US government wants Google to sell its browser
by Florian Bodoky
Court judgement: Google may keep Chrome
3-9-2025
Translation: machine translated
In future, the search engine giant will have to share certain user statistics with its competitors. However, Google does not have to sell its own browser. The billion-euro deal with Apple also remains authorised.
A US federal court has ruled that Google can keep its Chrome browser and Android operating system. The demanded break-up of the company will not materialise. The judgement follows the finding that Google has a search engine monopoly and has illegally secured this with exclusive distribution agreements.
The lawsuit against Google was filed in 2020 and is considered the most important competition case since the trial against Microsoft in 2001, when Microsoft had to give up its preferential treatment of its own browser. In the current case, the US government also demanded severe sanctions, including the spin-off of Chrome and Android. Chrome is considered a central element of Google's search empire, as the browser provides user data in order to optimise search results and advertisements.
Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that the requested measures go too far. Instead, he ordered other conditions: Google must share certain search data with competitors on a one-off basis. This includes index and interaction data. This will give competitors such as Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo, OpenAI and Perplexity the opportunity to improve their own search services. The data will be provided at standard market prices.
20 billion deal with Apple still permitted
Google may continue to make payments to partner companies such as Apple and Mozilla in order to position its own search engine as the standard - but without exclusivity clauses. The court reasoned that a general ban on these payments would have significant disadvantages for partners and consumers. Apple receives over 20 billion US dollars a year from Google to ensure that Google remains the default search engine on Safari. At Mozilla, the payments even make up a large part of the company's revenue.
The judgement is seen by analysts as a success for Google and Apple. The shares of both companies rose significantly after the decision. Critical voices criticise that the measures are not sufficient to break Google's monopoly.
The effects of artificial intelligence (AI) were also addressed in the proceedings. AI-supported search services such as OpenAI and Perplexity are entering the market with new approaches. Judge Mehta cites this development as a reason for his reluctance: market conditions are changing and new suppliers have a good chance of competing with Google.
Google wants to appeal the judgement
In a statement, Google expressed satisfaction with parts of the judgement, but expressed concerns about the impact on data protection. The company also disagrees with the premise of the judgement that Google has a search engine monopoly. The company has therefore announced that it will appeal the judgement. The US Department of Justice also reserves the right to take further steps. The case could ultimately end up before the Supreme Court.
The judgement could serve as a blueprint for future proceedings against other tech giants such as Meta, Amazon and Apple. The US government has already filed further antitrust lawsuits, including in the area of online advertising, where Google has also been categorised as a monopolist.
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Samuel Buchmann
Senior Editor
Samuel.Buchmann@digitecgalaxus.chMy fingerprint often changes so drastically that my MacBook doesn't recognise it anymore. The reason? If I'm not clinging to a monitor or camera, I'm probably clinging to a rockface by the tips of my fingers.
