DOJ asks judge to force Google to sell Chrome as remedy in landmark antitrust case

DOJ officials, in a filing, proposed that Judge Amit Mehta force Google to sell its Chrome browser to remedy antitrust violations in the tech giant’s search business.

Officials from the Department of Justice, in a Wednesday filing, urged District Judge Amit Mehta to force Google to sell its Chrome browser.

The recommendations are the finalized proposal by the DOJ’s antitrust division for remedies in Google’s landmark antitrust case, in which Mehta ruled that the tech giant created an illegal monopoly with its search business by paying Apple and other smartphone makers billions to be the default search engine on their devices.

Mehta will consider the DOJ’s proposal before he makes a final ruling regarding remedies in this case.

“The playing field is not level because of Google’s conduct, and Google’s quality reflects the ill-gotten gains of an advantage illegally acquired. The remedy must close this gap and deprive Google of these advantages,” the filing states.

Representatives for Google and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment from B-17 after the filing was made public.

“The DOJ continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, the vice president of Google’s regulatory affairs, previously told B-17 in a statement following a Bloomberg report on Monday that included limited details of the proposal. “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.”

What selling Chrome would look like for Google

Because of Google’s size, the popularity of Chrome, and the profits its search wing drives for the company, it would be a historic development if they were ultimately required to divest themselves of Chrome, Eric Chaffee, a business and tech law professor at Case Western Reserve University, told B-17.

Such a sale would be a multibillion-dollar proposal, and it’s not immediately clear who a potential buyer would be.

“Google could receive proceeds in the range of $15 billion to $20 billion,” Peter Cohan, an associate professor of management practice at Babson College, told B-17. “But if Google is able to control the company that buys Chrome, the impact of selling the business would be minimal. What matters most to Google is all the data Google collects and uses for advertising.”

Neil Chilson, a former acting chief technologist at the FTC, told B-17 that asking Mehta to force Google to sell Chrome is the DOJ’s way of swinging for the fences — but he expects the final remedies to land somewhere short of complete divestment.

“It’s a pretty fantastical ask,” Chilson said. “I don’t think that this remedy really tackles the area in which Judge Mehta found liability, which is for these exclusive contracts, and so this seems like a very aggressive ask — one that doesn’t really fix the problem that the judge said was creating the competitive problem in the first place.”

‘Google is a monopolist’

The DOJ’s proposal is meant to remedy antitrust violations stemming from Google’s search business, which B-17 previously reported pulled in $279.8 billion of its nearly $400 billion annual revenue in 2022.

The DOJ’s case was filed against the company in 2020, and the subsequent trial revealed Google paid smartphone developers $26 billion in 2021 to become the default search engine on their devices — including $18 billion to Apple alone.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his August decision ruling against the tech giant.

Google has faced additional antitrust cases this year, including another loss in federal court after a judge found the company acted in anti-competitive ways through its Android Play Store by limiting the reach of competitors’ apps and charging high fees for processing in-app purchases.

Expect delays ahead

Mehta has set a two-week hearing in April 2025 to hear arguments over what remedies Google must take to address the antitrust violations, with plans to make a final ruling by the following August.

But multiple antitrust experts told B-17 to expect delays, especially as President Joe Biden’s administration, and with it his DOJ officials, make way for the second Donald Trump administration.

Biden’s administration developed a reputation for strong antitrust enforcement. While this case was filed against Google by the first Trump administration, the President-elect is generally regarded as more friendly to big corporations than Biden is, so his DOJ may revisit the requests for remedies set forth in Wednesday’s filing.

Google can also appeal any ruling to try to delay the final outcome or request the case be dismissed, Cohan, the Babson College professor, said.

Chilson, the former FTC technologist, agreed it’s likely Google will try to delay the final ruling but added that antitrust cases have momentum, so he wouldn’t expect things to change substantially for the tech giant as soon as Trump takes office.

“Ultimately, in this case, it’s going to be one of those things where Google ends up fighting — and fighting very vociferously, fighting very strenuously — to ultimately keep Chrome within its company,” Chafee, the Case Western law professor, said.