The United States may forcibly separate Android and Chrome from Google

We just had the exciting launch of Google’s Pixel 9 series, and these devices are certainly worthy of our attention. On the business side, however, things aren’t looking great for the company. Earlier this month, a US district court ruled that Google violated US antitrust law when it preloaded its search engine and web browser onto Android devices, taking advantage of its monopoly position. As part of the fix, the US Department of Justice is exploring the possibility of separating Android and Chrome from Google.

Google will appeal the district court’s decision, but the judge also ordered both sides to begin planning for Phase II of the case. Phase II will include the government’s proposals to restore competition, including a possible carve-out order that the judge could then impose on Google and its parent company, Alphabet.

Report from Bloomberg, citing anonymous people discussing private conversations, suggests the Justice Department is considering several options, including:

• Separating Android and Chrome from Google.
• Prohibition of exclusive search agreements.
• Forced sale of Google AdWords business.
• Enforcing interoperability requirements for AdWords to enable it to work seamlessly with other search engines.
• Stopping Google from forcing websites to make their content available on some of Google’s AI products in order to appear in search results.
• Forcing Google to divest or license its data to competitors like Bing and DuckDuckGo.

The report confirms the previous analysis Information, who also explored the possibility of the government ordering Google to get rid of Android. He also suggested that Google’s exclusive search deals with Apple and Mozilla, worth tens of billions of dollars in revenue, are also in the crosshairs. Google could also be forced to share its training data with rival AIs.

Separating Android from Google would be a pretty big move. The US DoJ tried to break up companies like Microsoft for illegal monopoly two decades ago, but failed then. The most likely remedy would be to halt exclusive search deals, which would still have a profound effect on all parties involved.

From the way the analysis and reports are worded, there’s also a chance that a combination of these remedies could be forced on Google. The question remains what the future holds for Android, Chrome, and Google in light of this antitrust case.

We’ve reached out to Google for comment on the report and will update this article once we hear back.