The United States Department of Justice suggested forcing Google to sell the Chrome browser – a cornerstone of the company. Could we be witnessing the dismantling of the technology giant?
A Google is being tried in a case in which she is accused of maintaining a illegal monopoly in research.
According to data from StatCounter, cited by , Google Search has a world share of 89.3%contra 4,15% do Bing, 2,8% do Yandex e 1,33% do Yahoo!.
The Department of Justice of Joe Biden asked federal judge Amit Mehta to force the Google selling Chrome browser – fundamental part of the company.
Chrome is (by far) the most used browser in the worldcontributing decisively to maintaining Google’s search engine dominance.
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadellaargues that Google’s dominance in search engines is so strong that Websites structure their content to fit your requirements – making any type of competition difficult.
“The proposed final decision requires Google to divest from Chrome, which will permanently end Google’s control over this critical access point for searches and allow rival search engines to access the browser that, for many users, is the gateway to the internet,” the Department of Justice wrote.
Who rises once
Interestingly, as Expresso notes, Google’s explosive growth was only possible because, In the 1990s, US courts took Microsoft to court for monopolistic behavior. At the time, the problem was that Microsoft’s browser was free and installed by default on Windows.
It was precisely the agreement that resolved the process, in 2002, already in this century, that opened up competition and triggered Google’s growth.
Does “two or three” stand up?
In the hypothetical scenario of the company making changes that impact the market, the judge may consider that it is not necessary to force the sale of Chrome. However, If the judge forces the sale of Chrome, the impact could be catastrophic.
Speaking to Expresso, the analyst Murthy Grandhi from the consultancy Global Data, theorizes that the US can destroy an entire internet ecosystem.
“With Google Chrome representing almost two-thirds of the global browser market, the implications of a forced sale for Google’s business model and stock market value Alphabet are profound”, he considered, referring to Alphabet – the “mother” of Google.
“It’s more than a browser, is a hub of the Alphabet ecosystem, connecting users to services such as Gmail, Google Drive and YouTube”, he continued.
This is the point of the North American Justice: the separation of Chrome will dismantle the company’s current business model.
Google accuses the North American Court of “radical interventionist agenda”.
The expectation is that the company will reinvent itself and revolutionize its strategies, as happened in the early 2000s.
However, a possible drastic change will always affect someone.
For example, Mozilla, which develops Firefox, has warned that banning these agreements will have impact on small browsers – since the money it receives for setting Google by default on its platforms in Firefox is essential for its survival.
