Google's market dominance: US judiciary considers splitting up the group
The US Department of Justice is reportedly considering breaking up Google. The background to this is a court ruling on the group's monopoly position.
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Google could be broken up. Specifically, it is about the possible spin-off of individual areas - such as the advertising system, the Chrome web browser or the entire mobile division including the Android operating system. The background to the US Department of Justice's deliberations is a ruling from the beginning of August. A US court had ruled that the company had an illegal monopoly in the internet search sector.
Bloomberg reports on the plans of the US judiciary, citing circles familiar with the case. According to the report, the US government is also seeking a ban on exclusive contracts – the main issue in the antitrust proceedings. The judge found that Google was abusing its market power in favor of its search engine business. This concerns the contracts that Google has with other companies so that Google is the default search engine. For example, Google pays Apple a lot of money to be the default search engine on iPhones. According to the judge, this violates US competition law.
Google secures a monopoly and is too expensive
A second violation that the judge sees concerns the advertising around search results. These are too expensive. Google had therefore not only consolidated its market power with the contracts, but had also used this to charge excessive prices. Google's behavior has therefore harmed other search engines on the one hand, but also advertisers on the other. The potential split would therefore affect areas that are used by Google to ensure its own dominance.
It is not yet clear what sanctions Google will face as a result of the court ruling. Google can still appeal – and it can be assumed that Google will do so.
In the 1980s, US authorities forced the break-up of US telecommunications provider AT&T. Microsoft also threatened to split up various business units in 2000. In the end, the split did not take place, but the company still had to abide by a number of imposed rules. In the case of Google, it is also possible that it will have to adhere to certain measures to avoid being split up completely.
According to Bloomberg, Google's first hearing before the US Department of Justice has been scheduled for September.
(emw)
