Why the US wants to force Google to sell Chrome

The Department of Justice suggested it should ‘divest Chrome’ and divest or submit to oversight of Android – seismic challenges for the tech giant

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Google is in trouble. As my colleague Dan Milmo reported, the US Department of Justice “has proposed a far-reaching overhaul of Google’s structure and business practices, including the sale of its Chrome browser, in a bid to end its monopoly on internet search”. The move follows a major court ruling last August in which a federal judge determined that Google had violated antitrust laws and held an illegal monopoly over search services. The justice department’s suggestion is blunt: “Google must divest Chrome.” As for Android, the DoJ proposes two potential remedies: divest or submit to government oversight.

Both demands present seismic challenges to Google’s multiform, money-printing advertising business and would be a worst-case scenario for the company.

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