US antitrust lawyers are asking a judge to force the sale of Google’s Chrome browser in a move to limit the company’s market dominance, in a move that would shake up the Internet giant.
On Wednesday, the US Justice Department submitted its recommendation for the breakup to US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who is set to take steps next year to address Google’s monopoly power in online search.
Shock to Google?
“This would be a huge blow to Google,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.
Google offers free search, making money from targeted advertising and features that promote online commerce.
“This will drastically change (Google’s) business model,” said Beth Egan, an advertising professor at Syracuse University.
Selling Chrome would also deprive Google of the rich source of information it uses to train its algorithms and promote other services like Maps.
Launched in 2008, Chrome dominates the browser market, dwarfing rivals Edge and Safari, developed by Microsoft and Apple respectively.
Egan believed that Google would find a way to recover if it was forced to sell Chrome.
“I don’t think the browser divestiture will destroy Google as a company,” Egan said.
He said that given the case Google is making on the matter in its blog post, it may be its users who suffer.
What is the price of chrome?
A Bloomberg analyst estimates that Chrome, which is used by more than three billion people worldwide, will sell for at least $15 billion.
But given the lack of precedent, it’s hard to predict how much Chrome will bring to the market.
A Chinese investment group bought an internet browser from Opera Software ASA in Norway for $600 million in 2016, but it claimed only 350 million users at the time.
Who can buy it?
According to Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, senior analyst at eMarketer, there are very few potential buyers for Chrome.
“It’s likely that any company that carries the expense of Chrome is already under antitrust investigation,” Mitchell-Wolf said.
“If I had to speculate, I’d be inclined to look at US-based artificial intelligence players.”
While Chrome being purchased by the likes of OpenAI will certainly raise antitrust concerns, the US government may see it as a way for the country to prioritize innovation on the global stage.
Elon Musk’s AI startup could certainly be a contender for Chrome, funded by his wealth and the deal that got him approved because of his close working relationship with incoming President Donald Trump.
Victory for rivals?
Analysts agreed that people will continue to use Chrome regardless of who owns it, provided the quality does not decline.
“This means that Chrome has retained its most popular features and continued to innovate,” said analyst Mitchell-Wolf.
“Search behavior is a function of convenience first, trust and experience second.”
The analyst said the Justice Department’s argument that people use Chrome because it is a default search engine on devices is wrong.
trump factor
Many doubt that the judge will adopt all of the Justice Department’s proposed measures in the Mehta case.
CFRA analyst Angelo Zino considered the measures “excessive and unlikely to be imposed by a court”.
The incoming Trump administration also “remains a wild card” as to whether Justice officials would push back on the idea of breaking up Google.
Trump indicated in October that he opposed dismantling Google, believing such a move would be against US interests internationally.
Trump argued at the time that “China is afraid of Google” and that a breakup would hurt the company.
Meanwhile, Trump has also accused Google of being unfair to conservatives.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
