Android sales could be a consequence of Google’s antitrust ruling

Earlier this week, Google suffered a major legal blow when a federal judge agreed with the government that the search giant had abused its market power by violating U.S. antitrust law. While calling Google a monopoly in the search world is a big deal, we were more curious about what the ramifications of the ruling might look like. This isn’t something that just gives you a fine and you’re free to continue operating — the government will want to take steps to prevent Google from finding itself in that position again. And when it comes to theories about how that might play out, the future of Android could look very different.

Analysis published by Information is exploring the possibility of a government order for Google to get rid of Android. From Google’s agreements with manufacturers that require them to include Search and other Google services on their devices, to the way Search plays a role in so many connected offerings — like Assistant and Gemini — the concern is almost that Google can’t help but continue to want to bundle Search with Android.

Smaller steps don’t seem to be working; EU-style “choose your search engine” splash screens have been around for years, and since they clearly haven’t fixed anything, a more drastic solution may soon be on the table. We can’t say exactly what that will look like, but it’s an option that regulators are likely to take seriously.

In addition to Android, the government is expected to overturn Google’s search exclusivity deals with companies like Apple and Mozilla, potentially costing it tens of billions of dollars in revenue. We’ve already mentioned how messed up Google Search and its AI efforts are, and there’s the possibility that Google could be forced to share its training data with AI rivals. This is also far from the only antitrust action Google is currently facing, and the fallout from these other cases could further fuel the government’s interest in breaking up Google.