Google is breathing a big sigh of relief today.
Why? A judge has ruled that the company will not be forced to sell Chrome or Android, two suggestions that were being pushed by the U.S. Department of Justice as a result of the search giant losing a major antitrust case last August brought against it by the government.
On Tuesday, Sept. 2, District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington rejected the DOJ’s push to break up Google. Instead, Judge Mehta ruled that Google can no longer take part in exclusive deals regarding its search engine, such as the one that saw Google pay billions of dollars to Apple in order to maintain its search dominance on iOS devices.
In addition, the judge ruled that Google must also share some of its search data with competitors.
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The judge’s decision marks a judgment in just one of Google’s antitrust cases, which spanned from President Donald Trump’s first administration into the preceding Biden administration and now into Trump’s second term.
Google is currently involved in a separate antitrust case regarding digital advertising, which the company also lost in April.
Regardless of the judge’s remedy, the search giant says it will appeal the decision, as Judge Mehta claimed that the company was acting like a monopoly and controlled 90 percent of the search market thanks to exclusive deals like the one the judge banned with Apple.
Nevertheless, Judge Mehta’s refusal to break up Google must be welcomed news to both Google and other Silicon Valley companies undergoing antitrust lawsuits.
However, some, like OpenAI and Perplexity, may not be thrilled with the judge’s decision, as these AI companies were eager to acquire the popular Chrome web browser if Google had been forced to sell it. That definitely won’t be happening now.
