Google may be forced to sell its Chrome browser due to monopoly complaints — potential $20 billion sale if approved by a judge

[Pelican Press 0]

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may be forced to sell its Chrome browser due to monopoly complaints — potential $20 billion ***** if approved by a judge

The Department of Justice (DoJ) may force

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to give up its Chrome browser, and the tech giant is not taking the news in stride. According to

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on Wednesday, the DoJ may ask Judge Amit Mehta, who presides over the ******* States vs.

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antitrust case, to mandate that

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sell Chrome. Judge Mehta ruled in favor of the US government and the 17 states that joined the lawsuit in August, allowing the DoJ to consider what

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should do to lose its ******** monopoly status.

Being forced to sell or otherwise give up Chrome would be a significant ***** to

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since the data

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collects from Chrome offers the tech giant crucial insight into its users, which makes its advertising business even more effective and profitable. Chrome is also a gateway into other

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products, such as

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Search, Gmail,

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Drive, and Gemini, the company’s AI service.

According to StatCounter, two-thirds of the world’s internet users browse the web via Chrome, which is by far the most used browser in the world, next to Safari, which is just 18%. The ***** could have major ramifications for the internet’s landscape.

The DoJ reportedly will make other demands relating to AI, the Android operating system, and data licensing, all major components of

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’s business. The government was apparently also intent on forcing a ***** of Android but now wants

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to separate the smartphone OS from the

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Play store, the company’s search engine, and other products. Perhaps not coincidentally, Android’s deep integration with the

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Play store is a vital issue in Epic’s lawsuit against

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, first filed in 2020.

Unsurprisingly,

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isn’t a fan of this potential outcome. “The DOJ continues to push a ******** agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” VP of Regulatory Affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland said in a statement to Tom’s Hardware. “The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and ********* technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed.”

However, it’s unclear if the DoJ can even get precisely what it wants, particularly concerning Chrome. According to StatCounter, four of the top five browsers are owned by a larger company: Chrome by

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, Safari by Apple, Edge by

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, and Samsung Internet by, of course, Samsung. Mozilla Firefox is the biggest browser in the world, which a giant tech corporation does not own, representing just 2.65% of the market. The internet browser business just isn’t very competitive.

Mozilla can only operate as it does thanks to

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, which pays the browser organization about half a billion dollars a year. Firefox’s default search engine is

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’s. Mozilla’s latest financial statement from 2022 shows that it made $510 million from royalties generated from “search engines of its customers as a default status or an optional status.” Most of these royalties likely come from

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since its search engine is the default.

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Without these royalties, Mozilla would have only made $80 million in 2022, nowhere near enough to cover its expenses of $425 million before taxes. That doesn’t bode too well for Chrome, which might not be able to survive on its own without significant financial support from a tech giant like

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.

If Chrome is put up for *****, the only buyers might be companies on the same scale as

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, such as

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. That may break up

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’s monopoly, but it’s hard to imagine transferring Chrome from one tech giant to another is what the DoJ wants.

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#

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#forced #sell #Chrome #browser #due #monopoly #complaints #potential #billion #***** #approved #judge

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