It’s A Blue Monday For Alphabet
The American Department of Justice has made a ruling that Alphabet must fully divest itself of Chrome, selling not just the ownership of the web browser but also providing development details to ensure Chrome can be properly maintained and improved going forward. This is not a total loss for Alphabet as the original complain also sought to force Alphabet to divest itself of all it’s AI assets as well as the Android operating system. The current ruling is more about limiting Alphabet’s advertising of their various products on their own platforms.
For instance, the ruling requires Alphabet to make AI results from Google searches on Android devices optional, not mandatory as they are currently. The ruling also requires Alphabet not to pressuring it’s partners to provide Google powered searches and AI solutions as the primary choice for their customers. Failure to do so would cause the DOJ to reconsider the current decision to not force Alphabet to sell off the Android operating system.
This is quite an impressive anti-trust ruling, and it will be interesting to see how it is enforced.
"Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that—no matter what occurs—Google always wins," the DOJ filing says. To that end, the government maintains that Chrome must go if the playing field is to be made level again.
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