After being convicted of monopolistic practices, will Google follow in Microsoft's footsteps and face the fate of "breaking up"? The US Department of Justice is considering a split

Google lost a major antitrust case that will determine its future and may face the risk of forced breakup.

On Tuesday, August 13th, Eastern Time, media reports cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that after a U.S. court ruled that Google monopolized the online search market, the U.S. Department of Justice is considering punishments for Google, including the rare measure of breaking up the company. If the Department of Justice does seek to impose this penalty, Google will face the risk of having its core business "split up" like Microsoft did over twenty years ago, becoming the first company in over two decades to be pushed by the U.S. government to face severe penalties for violating antitrust laws.

Sources revealed that if the Department of Justice pushes forward with the breakup plan, the most likely departments of Google to be divested are the Android operating system and the Chrome web browser. U.S. government officials are also considering forcing Google to sell its online advertising platform, AdWords.

Sources said that compared to breakup, less severe punishment options being considered by the Department of Justice include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and taking measures to prevent Google from gaining unfair advantages in its artificial intelligence (AI) products. In any case, the Department of Justice is likely to seek to prohibit Google from entering into exclusive contracts with other companies, which is the core of the U.S. government's lawsuit against Google. When the Department of Justice filed the lawsuit against Google last year, it accused Google of paying over a hundred billion dollars a year to companies like Apple to maintain its default search engine status.

Last Monday, Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. Federal Court announced a ruling that found Google's search business in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. This means that in the largest antitrust case in the U.S. tech industry in over two decades, the plaintiff, the U.S. Department of Justice, won, and the way millions of Americans access information online may undergo significant changes, with Google's decades-long dominance in the search market potentially being overturned.

Judge Mehta announced that another trial will be held on September 4th to discuss and decide how to address Google's anticompetitive behavior, such as what fines to impose on Google or what changes to require it to make. At that time, Google has the right to appeal, and experts estimate that this legal process could take about two years.

Subsequently, Wall Street News mentioned that this ruling against Google has striking similarities to the Microsoft antitrust case. Just as Microsoft was found guilty of abusing the market dominance of its Windows operating system, Google is also facing legal sanctions. Judge Mehta cited the Microsoft case from over two decades ago as a reference. Sam Weinstein, a law professor at Cardozo Law School who previously served as an antitrust lawyer at the Department of Justice, pointed out: "(The U.S.) government has been explicitly and implicitly indicating that they are building the legal basis of this case based on the Microsoft case."

In 1999, a federal court ruled that Microsoft illegally leveraged the market dominance of its Windows operating system, squeezing out browser competitors including Netscape Navigator. The 2001 settlement agreement forced Microsoft to stop putting competitors at a disadvantage in the personal computer business On June 2000, the court made a formal ruling requiring Microsoft to stop bundling sales activities. More critically, it planned to split Microsoft into two parts: one operating the operating system business and the other operating other software businesses. Microsoft appealed after initially losing the case, eventually reaching a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid being split in two, but still paying a high settlement fee and opening up some source code.

However, experts currently believe that Google is unlikely to be forced to split. Some legal experts believe that the most likely outcome is for the court to require Google to cancel certain exclusive agreements, and the court may suggest that Google make it easier for users to switch to other search engines.

Last week, the media listed the punitive measures that the Department of Justice may propose to the judge, including:

• Canceling exclusive agreements that Google has signed with Apple, Samsung, Firefox, and other companies, as these agreements make Google the default search provider on their devices or browsers.
• Forcing Google to divest the Android system, as an independently operated Android system may not have the incentive to promote Google search.
• Preventing Google from using its AI assets to consolidate its dominant position in search, requiring Google to allow competitors to use some of Google's assets developed for their AI to train their AI.
• Google's advertising technology and the app store for Android system devices face penalties