Google's penalty for being a search monopoly does not include selling Chrome:
Google has avoided the worst-case scenario in the pivotal search antitrust case brought by the US Department of Justice. DC District Court Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that Google doesn't have to give up the Chrome browser to mitigate its illegal monopoly in online search. The court will only require a handful of modest behavioral remedies, forcing Google to release some search data to competitors and limit its ability to make exclusive distribution deals.
More than a year ago, the Department of Justice (DOJ) secured a major victory when Google was found to have violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The remedy phase took place earlier this year, with the DOJ calling for Google to divest the market-leading Chrome browser. That was the most notable element of the government's proposed remedies, but it also wanted to explore a spin-off of Android, force Google to share search technology, and severely limit the distribution deals Google is permitted to sign.
Mehta has decided on a much narrower set of remedies. While there will be some changes to search distribution, Google gets to hold onto Chrome. The government contended that Google's dominance in Chrome was key to its search lock-in, but Google claimed no other company could hope to operate Chrome and Chromium like it does. Mehta has decided that Google's use of Chrome as a vehicle for search is not illegal in itself, though. "Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture (sic) of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints," the ruling reads.
Google's proposed remedies were, unsurprisingly, much more modest. Google fully opposed the government's Chrome penalties, but it was willing to accept some limits to its search deals and allow Android OEMs to choose app preloads. That's essentially what Mehta has ruled. Under the court's ruling, Google will still be permitted to pay for search placement—those multi-billion-dollar arrangements with Apple and Mozilla can continue. However, Google cannot require any of its partners to distribute Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or Gemini. That means Google cannot, for example, make access to the Play Store contingent on bundling its other apps on phones.
There is one spot of good news for Google's competitors. The court has ruled that Google will have to provide some search index data and user metrics to "qualified competitors." This could help alternative search engines improve their service despite Google's significant data lead.
While this ruling is a pretty clear win for Google, it still technically lost the case. Google isn't going to just accept the "monopolist" label, though. The company previously said it planned to appeal the case, and now it has that option.
The court's remedies are supposed to be enforced by a technical committee, which will oversee the company's operations for six years. The order says that the group must be set up within 60 days. However, Google will most likely ask to pause the order while it pursues an appeal. It did something similar with the Google Play case brought by Epic Games, but it just lost that appeal.
With the high likelihood of an appeal, it's possible Google won't have to make any changes for years—if ever. If the company chooses, it could take the case to the US Supreme Court. If a higher court overturns the verdict, Google could go back to business as usual, avoiding even the very narrow remedies chosen by Mehta.
For a slightly different viewpoint see also A let-off or tougher than it looks? What the Google monopoly ruling means [JR]
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05, @10:19AM (1 child)
n/t
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05, @11:34AM
They want to keep all their precious rings^H^H^H ehhm metals.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday September 05, @12:08PM
AOSP isn't dead, but Google just landed a huge blow to custom ROM developers [androidauthority.com]
Google will soon stop you sideloading unverified apps – here’s what that means for you [techradar.com]
Google refrained from unleashing a full frontal assault against deGoogled ROMs before Trump #2. But now that fascism and corruption are the law of the land, they feel free to go right ahead with total impunity - and they do.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday September 05, @06:49PM (4 children)
A fine that is too small to make any real difference but maybe makes an impressive-looking headline, a signature on a very strongly worded document that nobody has any intention of enforcing, along with some large-ish checks slipped into the right hands will almost definitely make this whole thing go away.
Why? Because that's also what happened to Microsoft when it got busted. There were allegedly very strict rules they were supposed to follow, but they didn't seriously pretend to follow those rules, and nothing happened to them when they didn't.
The US economy would look wildly different if the Sherman and Clayton Acts were both vigorously enforced. We briefly had an FTC chair, Lina Khan, who was trying to do that (which is part of why this case even happened), but basically all of the Fortune 500 brass were pretty clear that as a condition for their campaign funding both major party presidential candidates had to promise to get rid of her and anyone else who might do what she was doing (namely, her job), so the effort was ultimately doomed. Laws are for the ordinary "little" people, not for the titans of industry.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Friday September 05, @09:30PM (3 children)
What gets me is how many anti-government people seem to think that it's OK for corporations to have all the rights of a person, but none of the responsibilities. There's a bunch of rightwing extremists that seem to think that it's a team sport where if they're leaders and members are psychopaths that everybody else is as well, which makes ti all OK.
I'm looking forward to seeing what ultimately happens with https://ladybird.org/ [ladybird.org] , because if they are able to actually deliver a functioning web browser with what they've got, it's going to open things up a lot. That is until Google decides to push yet another stupid change to standards that everybody else has to support because their engine is used on like 90% of all the browsers.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday September 06, @01:31PM (2 children)
I'll agree corporations are people when one of them goes to prison for their crimes. Heck, I'd also appreciate it when criminals who commit their crimes in corporate boardrooms rather than in an alleyway also get penalized at all for doing those crimes.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday September 06, @04:07PM (1 child)
There's been a general trend towards separating rights from responsibilities for quite some time. For much of humanity's existence, you get the rights you need in order to fulfill your responsibilities. A lot of what's going on right now is the result of doing stupid things like giving women the right to vote, but not giving them the responsibility for participation in public defense. It's a lot harder to vote for war-monging psychopaths when you're potentially on the hook for actually going if they run low on personnel, or at least went through a period where you were on the hook. Equal rights is what everybody likes to talk about, but equal responsibilities are arguably even more important. It's a lot harder to have the sort of screwed up society that we've got in the US, if everybody has an equal responsibility for the outcome, or perhaps a responsibility to society proportional to the amount of power and influence you've got.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 06, @11:28PM
If you want to reduce unnecessary wars, require that a referendum be held before starting offensive military action vs other countries. If there aren't enough votes for war then the leaders who proposed the war get put on Death Row, and need to wait for another referendum to see if enough voters want them alive[1].
This way the leaders can lead the charge to risk their lives for the war they are proposing. If leaders believe in the war enough to risk their own lives, then the soldiers should be more convinced too. Also the voting should not be 100% anonymous, that way those who voted for the war can be conscripted whenever needed.
Also is it that unethical to bomb civilians if all the civilians voted to attack and destroy your country?
[1] If they don't get enough votes they get executed. If later it turns out that a war was justified, they can be given some sort of posthumous award and people can say nice things about them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Friday September 05, @09:06PM (2 children)
Chrome DevTools [chrome.com] is one of the most powerful toolsets in the Web development environment, so if this means Google keeps Chrome and continues developing a tool that comes free and built-in to Chrome, I'm ok with that.
I'm also curious if anyone's *not* heard of/used DevTools. I use it to examine, prototype, and tweak CSS changes that I eventually save into StyleBot [stylebot.dev].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aafcac on Friday September 05, @09:34PM (1 child)
It's not free. The cost for that is that they get to further hobble the entire net and block ad blockers, making the whole net that much less secure than it could be. And worse, everybody that goes online pays the price for Google's abusive practices, not just the people that like their tools.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday September 13, @08:26AM
I love your comment. I would have modded it up, but it was already +5. I don't usually leave such comments, but sheesh... you nailed it!
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A