Google Won’t Have to Sell Chrome or Android in Antitrust Ruling

Alphabet shares surged 8.7% today after a U.S. judge handed Google a much lighter punishment than many expected in its major antitrust case.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had pushed for tough remedies, including forcing Google to sell off its Chrome browser or even parts of Android. But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected those measures. “Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment,” he wrote, adding that prosecutors “overreached.”

The case dates back to September 2023, when the DOJ argued that Google illegally maintained a monopoly in search. Last August, the court agreed, finding Google had broken antitrust law under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The focus then shifted to remedies, with a trial held in May.

Mehta’s ruling bars Google from signing exclusive distribution deals that guarantee its search engine remains the default, though the company can still pay partners like Apple to preload its services. Google, which pays Apple billions each year to be the default search tool on iPhones, warned in a blog post that the new requirements could affect “our users and their privacy.”

Apple still gets paid from Google, so it will retain that revenue. Google now also has to share its search data with rivals.

But the company noted the court “recognized that divesting Chrome and Android would have gone beyond the case’s focus.”

Many companies were jumping at the bit to buy Chrome if Google was forced to sell it off, with both OpenAI and Perplexity saying publicly they would want to acquire the web browser.

The DOJ called the decision “a step to pry open the market for general search services, which has been frozen in place for over a decade.” The order also extends to generative AI, ensuring Google can’t use the same tactics to dominate that space.