3 takeaways from the DOJ’s proposed remedies in the Google search antitrust ruling

The Department of Justice is proposing Google sell its browser Chrome (and potentially Android, too) as a remedy for “Google’s unlawful monopolization” of search, according to a court filing last week. In August, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the tech giant has a monopoly over search.

This is significant news for advertisers because the DOJ’s proposed remedies aim to increase transparency and control, potentially allowing more access to data, according to the filing.

“The [proposed final judgment] requires Google to divest Chrome, which will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” the DOJ counsel wrote in the filing.

Search advertising accounted for over $49 billion in revenue last quarter in Alphabet’s latest earnings report, 75% of its total ad sales. The government is also calling for an end to exclusive agreements, such as Google’s $20 billion deal with Apple in 2022 that allows it to be the default search engine in Safari.

Google responded to the filing by accusing the government of overreach. “[The] DOJ chose to push a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership. DOJ’s wildly overboard proposal goes miles beyond the court’s decision,” Kent Walker, Google and Alphabet’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, wrote in a blog post published after the filing was released.

Google has a chance to officially respond to the filing by Dec. 20.

There were plenty of takeaways for advertisers from the filing, but here are three of the biggest ones.

Bringing down the walled garden

If Google were forced into more transparency and data sharing around web activity and consumer habits, it would be a monumental change for advertisers and publishers. Nearly two years ago, while this case was making its way to trial, an executive at Starcom told The Current that the open internet works to shield the ecosystem from monopolistic power. Data is at the core of that shield.

“Data at scale is the ‘essential raw material’ for ‘building, improving and sustaining’ a competitive general search engine,” the DOJ counsel wrote.

“Through its unlawful behavior, Google has accumulated a staggering amount of data over many years, at the expense of its rivals,” the counsel added.

Breaking up part of Google’s data empire would help restore competition in the marketplace, according to the DOJ’s thinking. The filing mentions Google not being able to give preferential access through apps like YouTube or AI products like Gemini.

“The consumer benefit that will flow from innovation across these distribution channels is immense,” Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). “Dawn of a new tech era stuff.”

Leaving the door open for Android

While the Justice Department didn’t directly demand a divesture of Android because it may draw significant objections from Google or others, it did leave a potential spin-out on the table.

“Plaintiffs have presented behavioral remedies that would blunt Google’s ability to use its control of the Android ecosystem to favor its general search services and search text ad monopolies as well as limit Google’s ability to discriminate in favor of its own search and ads businesses,” the filing reads.

The DOJ recommended selling Android if the tech giant couldn’t “achieve the high standards for meaningful relief” to restore competition in the search market.

Google leverages massive amounts of users’ phone data through Android for things like ad targeting.

Scraping AI

Under the proposal, publishers, websites, and content creators could opt out of having their content used to train AI models, displayed as AI-generated content, or used for search indexing.

With AI models (including Google’s Gemini) building the foundation of their large language models off these websites, this proposal would attempt to curb those rising forces. And the DOJ is anticipating what could be the next era of Google’s business.

“It lays the groundwork to keep Google from exploiting its data dominance in the emerging AI-driven marketplace, fostering a fairer environment for competition and innovation than we’ve seen over the last decade of life under the rule of Google,” Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, a trade organization representing digital publishers, tells The Current.

News organizations are inking agreements to license their content for AI models as a way to create new revenue. This potential remedy could throw some weight behind strengthening publishers’ businesses, according to Hepner.

“Giving this power back to publishers is the beginning of the end of Google hoarding revenue from the open web,” Hepner wrote on X.

If Judge Mehta does rule that Google must be broken up, it would become the first Big Tech company to be successfully broken up under federal antitrust law since AT&T in 1982. In 2000, a judge originally ordered Microsoft to spin off its web browser, Internet Explorer. That ruling was overturned on appeals, and Microsoft never had to break up its company.