DOJ urges Google to sell Chrome and give advertisers more control

The Department of Justice is proposing that Google be forced to sell its Chrome browser as a remedy following the court’s antitrust ruling last August.

Antitrust officials laid out this and other proposed remedies in a court filing on Wednesday. It includes other requirements the government wants the judge will impose with the aim of leveling the playing field for competitors. It wants Google to share more information with advertisers and give them more control over where their ads appear — a move that would chip away at the walled gardens.

“The remedy must enable and encourage the development of an unfettered search ecosystem that induces entry, competition, and innovation as rivals vie to win the business of consumers and advertisers,” the filing reads.

The tech giant will have until December 20th to respond to the proposed remedies.

Spinning out Chrome would have huge implications for the digital advertising industry. It’s the world’s most popular browser with around 66% of browser traffic, according to Statcounter. Web activity on Chrome allows Google to collect massive amounts of user data to enable targeting capabilities for advertisers. Google made 75% of its revenue last quarter through advertising.

Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google “is a monopolist” and illegally maintained its monopoly over search. Next year, he will decide how the tech giant must remedy the infringement.

“It is refreshing to see the DOJ pursuing future-looking remedies that crack open the black box and put transparency and control rightfully back in the hands of advertisers,” Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at ad-industry watchdog Check My Ads, tells The Current.

Other industry watchers say this level of government intervention could reshape the online search marketplace, leveling the playing field for rivals. The filing also leaves open the possibility that Google would have to spin out its Android operating system should it not satisfy the government’s demands.

“This is a chance to reset and rebuild a healthier ecosystem — one where publishers, advertisers, and consumers all benefit from greater balance, transparency, and innovation,” Josh Brandau, CEO of AI company Nota, tells The Current.

Order through chaos

The proposal would force Google to let websites opt out of content scraped by Google’s AI products, and license data from Chrome.

Another proposed remedy would uncouple the tech giant’s Android smartphone operating system from its other products, like search and Google Play. That would likely give the Justice Department a chance to rein in the massive amount of data influence Google has.

“Chrome isn’t just a browser — it’s Google’s digital vacuum cleaner, sucking up every crumb of user behavior to fuel its ad behemoth. Without Chrome, Google’s ad empire might start looking a lot less like Caesars Palace and a lot more like a sad strip mall,” Pesach Lattin, executive consultant at Bondstark, wrote on LinkedIn.

The greatest changes within the industry come through sudden disruption rather than gradual forces, according to Brandau, as the free market takes over and the best solutions rise to the top without “relying on monopolized data pipelines.”

“Disruption like this is always messy at first, but that’s how the best ideas emerge,” Brandau says. “The industry will adapt, find its footing and come out the other side with a greater degree of choice.”

Meanwhile, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland told Bloomberg that the Justice Department “continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case.” Mulholland adds, “The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed.”

How publishers fit in

Publishers would be among the most affected by any remedies to the search ruling, including a sale of Chrome. They collectively poured in millions into testing solutions that work with Google’s Privacy Sandbox before Google pulled the plug on deprecating third-party cookies within its Chrome web browser.

With unpredictable market forces bearing down on online publishers — including changes in Google’s search algorithm, the rising power of AI on search, an often inefficient supply chain stripping them of revenue and social platforms deprioritizing news — a potential sale of Chrome would be the latest bombshell.

“This is a chance to take more control over their revenue and escape being boxed in by a single system,” Brandau says. “That said, there’s a real downside here: An already distressed market is going to have to tackle tech evaluation and integration, and smaller players simply don’t have the resources to handle that well. In the short term, this could mean decreased efficiency and revenue. But looking further ahead, publishers stand to gain more transparency, flexibility and — the dream — predictability.”

In the last major tech antitrust ruling two decades ago, a judge ordered Microsoft to spin off its web browser, Internet Explorer. But that ruling was overturned on appeals, and Microsoft never had to break up its company.

In Google’s case, the judge will hear remedies in April and issue a final ruling by August, which experts believe the tech company will appeal.