DOJ unveils plan to end Google’s illegal search monopoly

The U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of states unveiled their proposed remedies today aimed at dismantling Google’s illegal monopoly in search and search advertising. These include breaking off Chrome and banning default search payments.

The remedies. They break down into five categories meant to enable and increase competition:

• Distribution remedies. This would mean ending payments that “freeze the ecosystem in place,” including Google’s multi-billion-dollar payments to Apple and Android device makers.
• Chrome divestiture. This would separate Chrome from Google – organizationally and financially. Chrome accounts for 35% of all Google search queries and drives “billions in Search revenue” (the actual number is redacted). The DOJ also pointed out that Google “underinvests” in Chrome.
• Data remedies. This would require Google to share user-side data, search index coverage, and ad performance data – essential tools that help competitors train models, improve search results, and better compete.
• Advertising remedies. This would increase transparency and control for advertisers, while helping rival ad platforms compete more effectively. Specifically, Google would be forced to:
  • Provide more information to advertisers in search query reports.
  • Let advertisers opt out of broad and automated keyword matching.
• Anticircumvention provisions. This would establish a technical committee to monitor Google’s compliance.
  • This section includes a “contingent Android divestiture.” If competition hasn’t improved within five years, Google could be forced to spin off Android.

Why we care. If these remedies move forward, it could profoundly reshape how people access Google, how advertisers spend, and how competitors evolve in the search and generative AI markets.

Catch up quick. U.S. vs. Google antitrust trial: Everything you need to know

The opening slides. United States & Co-Plaintiff States v. Google LLC (redacted public version) (PDF).

What Google is saying. As you’d expect, Google called the DOJ’s proposed remedies “unnecessary and harmful” in a blog post.