Google VP Calls Out ‘Government Overreach’ Amid DOJ’s Breakup Threats

The Department of Justice is considering forcing a break-up of the largest search engine company in the world, Google, which it has accused of causing “pernicious harms” to people.

This comes after August’s landmark ruling in court in which Google was found to be illegally stunting competition for its online search business. If the DOJ does end up moving forward with suggesting a full break-up of Google, it would mark potentially the largest intervention by a regulatory agency in big tech’s history.

For that to happen, the DOJ would need to first settle on that being the best solution. Then, the judge who is overseeing the case would have to agree with the government’s assertion that breaking Google up would be the best course of action as well.

Google has consistently pushed back against the DOJ and the proposals it is making, calling them “radical” and “sweeping” and also saying they would “risk hurting consumers, businesses and developers.”

Roughly 90% of all the searches on the internet go through Google. As part of its antitrust lawsuit against Google, the DOJ claimed that the parent company, Alphabet, used some other products that it owns such as the Android mobile operating system and the Chrome web browser to funnel users directly to its search engine.

Once there, Alphabet earns money off these users by selling advertisements that get served to them.

In a court filing, the DOJ claimed:

“Google’s unlawful conduct persisted for over a decade and involved a number of self-reinforcing tactics.”

The agency also said it was considering “remedies that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play [the app store], and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products.”

It’s expected that the DOJ will submit its full detailed proposals by November 20. Google would then have about a month to reply with proposed remedies of its own.

In the meantime, the company published a blog post on its site this week, calling the recommendations from the DOJ a “government overreach” that could ultimately mean higher prices for all consumers.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, the company’s vice president of regulatory affairs, wrote that Google offers its Android system and Chrome browser free because they serve as gateways to “help people access the web and use our products.”

However, she further wrote that if those two products were broken off as separate entities, each of those products would have to figure out how they could make money separate, which would then turn a free product into a paid one — affecting consumers’ wallets.

She also argued that since Google pays companies such as Samsung and Apple billions of dollars every year so they can be the default search engine on devices they produce, they are effectively subsidizing the products.

If they were to stop paying that money, prices would then increase on those products, Mulholland wrote.

The company also cited an article from the Wall Street Journal that said more people are using Amazon and TikTok for search, which means that the online advertising market is still very competitive.