Google just avoided disaster – the company will not be forced to sell its web browser, Chrome. It will have to make some concessions, but the ruling in what is described by Bloomberg as the “biggest US antitrust case in almost three decades” is overall favorable for the Mountain View company.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Google of having an illegal monopoly on the search engine market. DOJ’s suggested remedy for that was to divest Chrome. Some companies even made offers, e.g. Perplexity AI offered $34.5 billion.
That’s not happening, ruled the judge. Google will have to share some online search data with its rivals – this may include the likes of Bing (Microsoft) and DuckDuckGo, as well as AI companies that siphon off as much online data as possible.
Additionally, Google will be allowed to keep paying other companies to be the default search engine on their platforms – a practice that the DOJ wanted to end. This is good news for Apple, which receives around $20 billion a year to have Google as the default search engine on iPhones.
However, Apple will have to do more to promote alternative engines. Also, web browsers will be allowed to have a different default for privacy mode – something that Apple has been asking for. So far, so good.
This is also great news for Firefox as the vast majority of Mozilla’s revenue comes from the Google default deal. Phew.
Interestingly, this ruling will affect Android makers too. So far, Google required that phone makers install the full Google app suite to gain access to Google Play services. Going forward, makers will be able to install only the Google Play Store – this will reduce bloat for makers that have their own versions of basic apps.
Source (paywall)