Highlights
- Money, Chrome, and ChatGPT: The high stakes of Google’s monopoly trial
- The future of Google Search is back in court.
- Google is in more danger than ever of being broken up
- Breaking down the DOJ’s plan to end Google’s search monopoly
- How the DOJ wants to break up Google’s search monopoly
- ‘There’s no price’ Microsoft could pay Apple to use Bing: all the spiciest parts of the Google antitrust ruling
- Now that Google is a monopolist, what’s next?
- Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case
- Breaking down the Google antitrust trial.
- The antitrust trial against Google Search starts today — here’s what to expect
Wes Davis
Chrome could suffer apart from Google, says Google.
Testifying in the Google Search antitrust trial yesterday, Chrome general manager Parisa Tabriz said Chrome’s features and functionality owe to its “interdependencies” on other parts of the company, reports Bloomberg. She reportedly said over 90 percent of Chromium code has originated from Google since 2015.
Noting Android’s reliance on Chromium, Bloomberg writes that earlier in the day, a computer science expert for the DOJ said even if it sold Chrome, Google would be motivated “to make sure the source code is well-maintained.”
Wes Davis
Google is paying Samsung an ‘enormous sum’ to preinstall Gemini
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Testimony this week from Google’s antitrust trial shows that Google gives Samsung an “enormous sum of money” each month to preinstall the Gemini AI app on Samsung devices, reports Bloomberg. Now that Judge Amit Mehta has ruled Google’s search engine is an illegal monopoly, its lawyers are sparring with the DOJ over how severe a potential penalty should be.
Peter Fitzgerald, Google’s vice president of platforms and device partnerships, testified on Monday that Google’s payments to Samsung started in January. That’s after Google was found to have violated antitrust law, partially due to similar arrangements with Apple, Samsung, and other companies for search. When Samsung launched the Galaxy S25 series in January, it also added Gemini as the default AI assistant when long-pressing the power button, with its own Bixby assistant taking a back seat.
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Jay Peters
Why are companies lining up to buy Chrome?
Image: The Verge
Chrome could eventually be up for sale, if the US Department of Justice gets its way in the remedies trial for US v. Google. And there are already buyers lining up at Google’s door.
Any potential sale might not happen for a very long time. The remedies trial is still ongoing, a decision in that trial isn’t expected for quite awhile, and Google has already said it will appeal, which will definitely add more time to the process and could ultimately reverse a ruling where Google might have been forced to sell the browser.
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Lauren Feiner
Yahoo wants to buy Chrome
Image: The Verge
Legacy search brand Yahoo has been working on its own web browser prototype, and says it would like to buy Google’s Chrome if the company is forced by a court to sell it.
The information came out during the fourth day of the Justice Department’s remedies trial to rectify Google’s search monopoly. The DOJ has — among other proposals — requested Judge Amit Mehta break up Google by requiring it sell its Chrome browser, which the agency says is a key distribution channel for its popular search engine that’s amassed too much power for anyone else to compete. Yahoo isn’t the only company interested in buying Chrome. While DuckDuckGo’s CEO said they wouldn’t be able to afford it, witnesses from Perplexity and OpenAI both expressed interest in the popular browser on the stand this week.
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Lauren Feiner
Perplexity wants to buy Chrome if Google has to sell it
Image: The Verge
Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko said he didn’t want to testify in a trial about how to resolve Google’s search monopoly because he feared retribution from Google. But after being subpoenaed to appear in court, he seized the moment to pitch a business opportunity for his AI company: buying Chrome.
If Judge Amit Mehta sees things the way the Justice Department does, he could force Google to spin out its popular web browser — including the free open source Chromium browser that many other web browsers are built on. Google says this remedy is playing with fire, and could result in a new Chromium owner charging for the product or failing to keep it running in an adequate way, causing ripple effects across the browser industry.
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David Pierce
Money, Chrome, and ChatGPT: The high stakes of Google’s monopoly trial
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Near the beginning of his opening arguments, David Dahlquist, a lawyer for the US Department of Justice, showed a slide that he described as Google’s “vicious cycle.” It goes like this: Google pays billions of dollars to be the default search engine practically everywhere, thus it gets more search queries, thus it gets better data, thus it is able to improve its results, thus it makes more money, thus it can afford more defaults. Google doesn’t really disagree with this assessment — but in its telling, that’s a virtuous cycle. Google believes it’s created a perfect system; the DOJ thinks it’s a nightmare. A judge will make the final call.
Dahlquist’s remarks were the opening salvo of the remedies phase of US v. Google, a landmark antitrust case that ended with judge Amit Mehta finding last year that Google’s search engine is a monopoly. The question in the courtroom this time, to be litigated over the next two weeks, is what to do to fix it. And according to Dahlquist, the process has to start by stopping every part of the cycle from spinning.
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David Pierce
The Department of Justice really, really wants Google to sell Chrome.
My big question coming into this remedies trial was how serious the government was about making Google divest Chrome. It’s a swing, and seemed like maybe a negotiating tactic. But in opening arguments it became clear that getting Chrome out of Google is very much part of the goal. So far, judge Amit Mehta seems skeptical of the idea, but Jonathan Sallet, a lawyer representing the states, argued that something has to be done with maybe the most-used app on the planet:
“This kind of asset — 4 billion users — does not come up very often for potential companies to acquire.”David Pierce
The future of Google Search is back in court.
I’m here in the DC District Court for the remedies phase of the US v. Google trial, which found Google to be a monopoly in search. David Dahlquist, the lawyer for the Department of Justice, just showed a slide of Google’s “vicious cycle” — Defaults, Searches, Data, Quality, Money — and said he intends to offer a plan to unwind the cycle piece by piece. It’s gonna be an intense next few weeks.
US v. Google: all the news from the search antitrust showdown
Lauren Feiner
Google is in more danger than ever of being broken up
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
After half a decade fighting to keep its empire together, Google’s defenses are wearing thin.
The company is facing a two-front war that could fundamentally reshape its business, and, the US Department of Justice argues, open new opportunities for its competitors. Last year a federal judge deemed Google an unlawful monopolist in the online search market, and this past week, a different judge declared it had monopolized the ad tech market, too. On Monday, it will face a new stage in that first battle: a three-week trial in Washington, DC to determine the appropriate remedies to restore competition to online search.
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Wes Davis
Google agrees to let employees talk about its Search antitrust trial.
The Alphabet Workers Union’s announcement of the agreement follows an unfair labor practice charge it filed last year over Google restraining employees from discussing the trial. The company is due in court this month for the remedy phase, which could see it being forced to sell Chrome.
...it is essential that workers are able to discuss these impacts, participate in the deliberations, and, if they choose, bargain collectively around the implementation of any eventual remedy.
Union Victory Against Google’s Antitrust Gag Order
[alphabetworkersunion.org]
Wes Davis
Trump’s DOJ still says Google should be broken up
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is still pushing to break up Google, according to a revised proposal filed Friday with federal Judge Amit Mehta. As in its proposal last year, the DOJ says Google should be forced to sell its web browser, Google Chrome, and potentially Android, as punishment for being a monopolist, as Judge Mehta found last year, reports The New York Times.
In its new filing, the DOJ calls Google “an economic goliath” that it says “has denied users of a basic American value—the ability to choose in the marketplace.” To deal with that, “Google must divest the Chrome browser … to provide an opportunity for a new rival to operate a significant gateway to search the internet.” The department also still recommends that Google must change its Android business practices to enable competition or be ordered to sell the operating system. It dropped a suggestion that the company be allowed to sell Android in lieu of making the changes.
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Lauren Feiner
DOJ says it will let Google pay Apple for services unrelated to search.
That’s one of the minor changes the Justice Department made to its proposed final judgement in its antitrust case. The DOJ Antitrust Division is still operating under an acting chief as President Donald Trump’s nominee Gail Slater awaits confirmation. But so far, the government made only small tweaks to its asks based on discovery. It’s no longer asking that Google divest AI investments, for example, but that it give a heads up on future ones.
DOJ Revised Proposed Final Judgement in the Google Search trial
[storage.courtlistener.com]
Umar Shakir
Apple’s attempt to intervene in the Google Search antitrust trial is denied
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
US District Court Judge Amit Mehta denied Apple’s emergency request to halt the Google Search monopoly trial that could dismantle their lucrative search that’s reportedly worth as much as $18 billion a year. The order came in late Sunday, with Judge Mehta saying Apple hasn’t demonstrated satisfactory reasons for its emergency motion to stay that was filed on January 30th.
Apple said last week that it needs to be involved in the Google trial because it does not want to lose “the ability to defend its right to reach other arrangements with Google that could benefit millions of users and Apple’s entitlement to compensation for distributing Google search to its users.”
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Lauren Feiner
Apple asks court to halt Google search monopoly case
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Apple wants to ensure it has a voice in the remedies trial for the Justice Department’s search monopolization case against Google, and filed an emergency motion to stay the proceedings while it appeals the district court’s denial of its request to be more directly heard in the case.
The remedies phase of the trial is set to begin in April, since US District Court Judge Amit Mehta already found Google liable for illegal monopolization in the general search market. Even though Apple is not technically a party in the case, it has played a significant role in it — the billions of dollars Google pays Apple each year for default placement on iOS helped convinced Mehta of Google’s monopoly power.
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Wes Davis
Google CEO Sundar Pichai tells employees to expect a hard 2025.
During a 2025 strategy session on December 18th, Pichai urged Google’s workers not to become “distracted” by global regulatory scrutiny that he said “comes with our size and success,” reports CNBC.
He said “stakes are high” when it comes to Google’s AI tech in 2025, a year in which it faces potentially heavy regulatory action around the world beyond a possible antitrust breakup in the US.
Umar Shakir
Eddy Cue explains why Apple won’t make a search engine
Illustration: The Verge
Apple senior VP of services Eddy Cue says Apple will not create a search engine to compete with Google as it “would cost billions of dollars and take many years,” as recorded in a motion to intervene filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday. The purpose of the motion is to participate in the penalty phase of the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google, where as much as $20 billion could be at stake for Apple in its ongoing default search engine deal with Google.
The DOJ and Google have disagreed on how to address Google’s monopoly on general-purpose search engines, but both parties have tentatively accepted cutting or renegotiating its Apple partnership. Last week Google proposed a three-year ban on strict long-term exclusivity deals involving any ”proprietary Apple feature or functionality.”
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Umar Shakir
Apple would like to step in to defend its Google search deal.
Apple filed papers on Monday to participate in the Department of Justice’s victorious antitrust case against Google, which is now in its penalty phase. Google will need to make significant business changes, such as ending default search deals on devices like iPhones, which Google is OK with.
Apple? Well, its agreement with Google reportedly was worth $20 billion in 2022.
Lauren Feiner
Google to court: we’ll change our Apple deal, but please let us keep Chrome
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
After its victory against Google in an antitrust trial earlier this year, the Department of Justice recently proposed a sweeping set of changes its search business. The DOJ put a lot on the table, demanding that Google sell its Chrome browser, syndicate its search results, and avoid exclusive deals with companies like Apple for default search placement. It even kept open the possibility of forcing an Android sale.
Now, Google has responded with a far simpler proposal: prohibit those default placement deals, and only for three years.
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Richard Lawler
Google’s counteroffer to the government trying to break it up is unbundling Android apps
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
The Department of Justice’s list of solutions for fixing Google’s illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own (included below).
Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ’s filing considers, Google’s proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services, its licensing deals with companies that make Android phones, and contracts with wireless carriers. They don’t address a DOJ suggestion about possibly forcing Google to share its valuable search data with other companies to help their products catch up.
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Lauren Feiner
Breaking down the DOJ’s plan to end Google’s search monopoly
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images
Next year, a court might tell Google to do anything from syndicating its search results to selling the Chrome browser. These remedies and more were included in a request last week from the Justice Department, which is aiming to break up Google’s search monopoly.
The DOJ’s proposals clued in the public to what the government really wants out of Google. Though the complaint was filed in 2020, the first phase of the trial focused only on whether Google was liable for the antitrust harms the government alleged. After Judge Amit Mehta ruled this summer that Google is an illegal monopolist in general search services and search text advertising, the government has finally laid out its plan for how to restore competition, with proposals ranging from relatively simple tweaks in business practices to large structural changes.
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Thomas Ricker
Google responds to DOJ’s ‘extreme proposal.’
Alphabet’s top lawyer says the agency’s proposed remedies, which include selling off Chrome, are part of “a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership.”
If adopted, Kent Walker says the security and privacy “of millions of Americans” would be endangered, trade secrets would be sent to foreign companies, AI progress and innovation would be stymied, and the world as we know it would basically end.
Lauren Feiner
DOJ says Google must sell Chrome to crack open its search monopoly
Image: Laura Normand / The Verge
The Department of Justice says that Google must divest the Chrome web browser to restore competition to the online search market, and it left the door open to requiring the company to spin out Android, too.
Filed late Wednesday in DC District Court, the initial proposed final judgement refines the DOJ’s earlier high-level outline of remedies after Judge Amit Mehta found Google maintained an illegal monopoly in search and search text advertising.
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Lauren Feiner
Google workers to DOJ: we need protections to make your breakup effective
Illustration: The Verge
Google employees met with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division last month to share workers’ perspectives ahead of the government’s expected proposal to break up the company. Their message? That as the DOJ attempts to end Google’s search monopoly, any effective remedy must make sure workers are protected and empowered to speak out.
Three members of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA (AWU-CWA) met virtually with staff from the DOJ Antitrust Division on October 23rd, workers who attended the meeting told The Verge exclusively. During the hour-long conversation, the Google employees urged the government to consider how any remedies imposed by the court could impact workers and to make sure workers are protected and aware of their rights to share compliance concerns without facing retaliation.
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Lauren Feiner
Could Chrome be ready to Rumble?
Rumble, the YouTube rival popular with the right for its anti-”cancel culture” approach, is “very interested in acquiring Google Chrome,” CEO Chris Pavlovski says. He was responding to a Bloomberg report that the government is planning to ask a court to require Google to sell the browser as part of the antitrust case against its search business. Rumble notably brought its own antitrust suit against Google years ago.
Wes Davis
US lawyers will reportedly try to force Google to sell Chrome and unbundle Android
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
The Department of Justice is planning to ask for Google’s antitrust trial judge to force the company to sell off its Chrome browser after the judge ruled the company has maintained an illegal search monopoly, reports Bloomberg.
Chrome is the world’s most widely used browser, and the government’s lawyers have argued that its use in cross-promoting Google’s products is one of the things limiting available channels and incentives for competition to grow.
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