Google Forced to Sell Chrome? DOJ's Bombshell Breakup Plan | Pivot

The DOJ is asking a judge in the Google Search monopoly case to force the company to sell its Chrome browser as part of the remedy. Chrome has about 67% of the global market and could go for as much as $20 billion, according to some estimates. The government also wants to stop Google from getting into paid agreements with Apple and others to be the default search engine on phones and browsers. Uh, the DO- DOJ stopped short of requesting a full divestiture of Android. Google called the DOJ proposal extreme and is set to file its own suggestions by December 20th. Remedy hearings will be held in April, and the juz- judges are expected to rule over the summer. I, I know, you know, all these, all these, uh, agencies are sort of waiting for what happens with Trump, although you just never know because he's had some anti-Google, um, statements and everything else, and there'll be a new head of antitrust at the Justice Department. It's not clear who that's gonna be. Um, what do you... D- What do you think of this remedy? It seems like an unusual thing. Tech writer John Gruber noted Chrome and Android are not standalone businesses. They're appendages to Google. It's like saying, "I have to sell my left foot. It's very valuable to me but of no value to anyone else." Um, and if a buyer of Chrome is a company like OpenAI or Microsoft, could they be accused of creating, as you just... you know, another monopoly with this purchase?

I like this. The potential remedies were a fine. You can't come up with fines big enough. Uh, some sort of administrator from the government, bureaucrat that had to... They got to go into any meeting and tell them why they shouldn't do something, which they basically can ignore. Stick the, stick the fat, ugly, weird kid in the corner, and then finally, a breakup. So I was happy to see this. Now whether it holds or not... But I- I'm not sure I agree with the writer because, because Chrome, you know, has about two-thirds global share, I think, of the browser market.

Right, 67.

That's so much attention, um, that's so much attention that a lot of different people could monetize that. So it would have no shortage of bidders. It would, it would, um, uh, immediately stop this default, um, you know, steering everyone towards their search engine. It'd be more of a competition. So I like this. I think... I generally find that the FTC and the DOJ, and this is 'cause they bring in a lot of my colleagues from business schools, are pretty smart about trying to come up with solutions that grow the total market.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, so I, I like this. I hope it goes through.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I don't know if it'll hold.

Y- you know, there's so much uncertainty because, as I said, Cantor is, will be leaving, John Cantor, and Lina Khan's tenure may be over, or maybe not. It's very unclear. You might get someone like Brendan Carr, who's making a grab for power at the FCC, which it didn't have, but may be trying to do so. There's all kinds of uncertainty on who's going to be able to run this and then who is going to be the antitrust head. And it is all in the hands of a single judge, um, who's, who, which then can be appealed, et cetera, and the government can stop trying, right? The government can go a different direction, depending. Um, you know, it'll be interesting because Sundar Pichai, the head of Alphabet, was on the phone with Trump, and of course, guess who was on the phone with him? There's the whole Elon element. Elon was on a phone call with the CEO of Alphabet with Trump. I mean, there's all these different competing power centers, uh, happening here. So, uh, I, I agree with you. I think there sh- something should be cleaved off of these companies. That's, to me, the only... Because-