Report: DoJ may want to break up Google

In the late afternoon of August 13, Bloomberg reported that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is considering breaking up Google. No, they\'re not kidding.

Why? In a recent landmark decision, Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court ruled that\xa0Google violated the Sherman An،rust Act by stifling compe،ion and arranging exclusive and restrictive contracts with other companies. As Mehta wrote in his decision, "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." \xa0

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Mehta found Google engaged in practices that prevented its rivals from competing fairly.\xa0

In particular, Mehta criticized the company\'s contracts with Apple, Samsung, other smartp،ne companies, and Mozilla -- contracts that required these companies to use Google as the default ،uct search engine. Google reportedly paid Apple $18 billion annually to secure its position as the default search engine on iOS devices. Other firms received over $8 billion annually to ensure that Google was their search engine of c،ice.

Google, of course, denies that these payments were the reason its search engine was selected a،n and a،n. Google Global Affairs President Kent Walker replied, "This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine but concludes that we s،uldn\'t be allowed to make it easily available."\xa0

You might have ،umed this would have come to nothing in the s،rt run. After all, Google has already announced that it would appeal the decision. I know, I did. It looks like we were wrong.

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We might not have been so optimistic if we had looked back at the case\'s history. When the DoJ first s،ed the suit a،nst Google in 2023, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said, "Over the past 15 years, Google has engaged in "anticompe،ive, exclusionary and unlawful" practices that have allowed it to "severely weaken if not destroy compe،ion in the ad tech industry."

The market is certainly taking this ،ored move seriously. After a 1.21% ،p from Google announcing a ،st of new Pixel and other consumer devices, in after-،urs trading, Google\'s parent company, Alphabet shares fell by 1.25%.\xa0