Google, based in Mountain View, California, has an illegal monopoly in search, a federal court has ruled, and is fighting another government lawsuit aimed at its online ad business. (Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
By Eva Dou
November 20, 2024 at 10:55 p.m. ET
The Justice Department wants to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser and make other major changes to address an earlier ruling that the internet giant runs an illegal monopoly in search, prosecutors told a Washington court Wednesday, setting a marker in the case before the incoming Trump administration makes its own determinations about how to proceed.
“Google must promptly and fully divest Chrome, to a buyer approved by the Plaintiffs in their sole discretion, subject to terms that the Court and Plaintiffs approve,” the Justice Department said in its proposed final judgment.
Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in August that Google’s search business was an illegal monopoly, in a landmark decision. Mehta will decide by next summer what remedies to impose on Google to restore competition in the market. Google, which is already planning to appeal, now has a month to respond to the Justice Department’s proposal.
The prospects of the case are complicated by the imminent transition to a new Trump administration, with the Justice Department’s approach potentially shifting under a new attorney general. Biden’s antitrust enforcers are handing over a string of monopoly cases against Big Tech companies to Trump, after an aggressive four-year run to prosecute the cases. While the Biden administration’s approach has centered on the power of Big Tech companies to stifle competition and control markets, Trump and his advisers have expressed more concern about their power to control public discourse.


Biden’s Justice Department had said last month that it was considering a breakup of Google among its recommendations to Mehta. Days later, Trump told Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwait that he feared a breakup might “destroy” Google, noting that “China is afraid of Google.”
“What you can do without breaking it up is make sure that it’s more fair,” Trump said, adding that he had called “the head of Google” recently to complain that more “bad” stories than “good” stories about himself were showing up in Google’s news results. “I think it’s a whole rigged deal.”
It is unclear what this shift in emphasis would mean for these court cases. Some antitrust experts and former enforcers say Trump could seek a settlement in the Google search case rather than await an outcome from the court that he could not control.
There is precedent for such a shift: George W. Bush’s Justice Department settled a major monopoly case against Microsoft, after Clinton administration prosecutors pursued the company’s breakup. 

 Well that’s a surprise.