Amid signs that President Trump is following the Biden administration's lead in Google restraint, the Justice Department repeated its demands on Friday that the courts will dissolve the search giant.
The request follows last year's landmark ruling by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the District of Columbia, which found Google illegally maintains monopoly in online searches by paying web browsers and smartphone makers to power search engines. The judge will hear discussions on proposed solutions from both the government and Google in April.
Under the Biden administration last year, the Justice Department and state groups asked Justice Mehta in a backup application to force Google to include Chrome, a popular web browser. The department's lawyers on Friday may re-revise the internet competition with the demand repeatedly.
“Google's illegal activities have created economic behavior, which will wreak havoc in the market to ensure that no matter what happens, whatever happens, you always win,” the government said in its application Friday. “Americans are therefore forced to accept the unlimited demands of the economy and changing ideological preferences in return for the public to enjoy, in return for search engines.”
Google has said it intends to appeal the judge's decision in the end, and filed its own final proposal on Friday, maintaining its position that the company does not need to change much to address judges' concerns.
The Justice Department's decision to stick to a drastic proposal to fundamentally change the business of $2 trillion companies is one of the first signals from the new administration on how to approach technical regulations. Since the Justice Department was asked to dissolve Microsoft in 2000, the most important relief package proposed in the tech monopoly case could predict how Trump's appointees will handle other antitrust cases that challenge the tech giant's control.
The Justice Department also claims it is governing advertising technology, cases awaiting ruling, and that Apple claims its tight-knit systems of devices and software make it difficult for consumers to leave. The Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against Meta is set to go to trial in April over allegations that Meta took away the competition when he bought Instagram and WhatsApp. The agency has also sued Amazon and accused them of illegally protecting monopolies in online retail.
As the technology industry is trying to decide on its approach to regulation, it is closely watching Trump's choices to lead these agencies. The antitrust laws against tech giants stem from investigations that began during Trump's first term.
FTC's new chairman, Andrew Ferguson, has expressed concern about the power of the high-tech Giants as a gatekeeper for online discourse. “It's very easy to disappear from the internet if someone has only two platforms to provide news,” said Gale Slater, the Trump candidate who leads the Department of Justice's antitrust division, at a Senate confirmation hearing.
The submission on Friday was signed by Omedy A. Assephi. He leads the anti-trust division, and Slater is waiting for a Senate vote on her nomination.
Tech executives have visited Mar-A-Lago in recent months to seek the president's favor and donated millions of dollars to Trump's inauguration. CEOs such as Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg were sitting behind Trump during his time in office.
The first major test of the Trump administration's approach to concerns about the power of Big Tech is how it progresses in Google's search cases.
In a 10-week trial in 2023, the government said Google would lock out its rivals by signing deals with Apple, Mozilla, Samsung and others, and would automatically appear as a search engine when users open a smartphone or new tab in their web browser. According to the evidence presented at the trial, Google paid $26.3 billion for these arrangements in 2021.
Google claimed that the transaction did not break the law, and that users chose a search engine because they are better at finding information than rivals like Microsoft's Bing and Duckduckgo.
The Justice Department last year proposed that the company would be forced to sell Chrome after Judge Mehta determined in August that Google kept its monopoly illegal.
The government asked the court to stop Google from entering into paid contracts with Apple, Mozilla and smartphone makers, becoming the default search engine for smartphones and browsers. The company also needs to allow rival search engines to view Google results and access the data for a decade, the government said in an application at the time.
The government also says Google, whose parent company is alphabet, should be forced to sell shares in artificial intelligence products that can compete with search.
The Justice Department on Friday changed parts of its request and instead said it needs to notify federal and state officials before Google can proceed with its investment in AI.
The government also said Google needs to change its business practices for its Android smartphone operating system and it needs to eliminate the option that allows the company to simply sell Android. According to the new submission, if the market is not more competitive, the court can order Google to sell Android.
Google had urged Judge Mehta to take a narrower approach. This asked other companies to continue to allow them to provide prime placement of search engines on web browsers and smartphones. However, he said these contracts are less restrictive than in the past and should allow other search engines to compete for prime placements to phones and browsers. Additionally, browser makers such as Apple and Mozilla should be allowed to change their default search engines at least every 12 months, the company said.
On Friday, Google submitted the same proposal to Judge Mehta. The government's proposal “will harm American consumers, the economy and national security,” Google spokesman Peter Schottenfels added in a statement.
Judge Mehta is scheduled to take the lead side of a nearly two-week hearing next month and will decide on a relief package for the case.
