Google’s Antitrust Endgame Hits the Bench

Alphabet’s long-running clash with U.S. antitrust enforcers has entered its remedy phase, the part of the trial where the government stops proving misconduct and starts demanding structural change. In August 2024 U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google maintained monopolies in general search and search advertising in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act . The courtroom now pivots to what many call the “search-remedy showdown.”

The Justice Department and 38 states want no half-measures.  Their proposed order would force Google to:

1. Divest the Chrome browser—the software that supplies roughly half of all global desktop queries—so rivals can integrate their own default engines.

2. Terminate “default-placement” payments worth $26.3 billion in 2021 alone  that keep Google pre-installed on Apple’s Safari and Android handsets.

3. License slices of its “corpus” (full search index) and click-stream data [raw records of what users searched and where they clicked] to qualified competitors for five years.

   
   

The DOJ argues that without these moves Google could recreate its moat simply by out-spending challengers on distribution fees. Judge Mehta pressed both sides last week, asking whether disclosing ranking algorithms would hamper user privacy or tilt the AI arms race . Google’s counsel insisted that forced data sharing would hand “crown-jewel signals” to companies like OpenAI—whose CEO has already floated buying Chrome if it comes on the block.

Google offers a lighter fix: expand mobile setup menus so users pick a search engine during onboarding, plus shorter, cheaper licensing terms for phone makers. It calls the divestiture request “nuclear” and says it has already loosened exclusivity clauses in Samsung and Firefox contracts. Yet state AGs counter that such tweaks resemble Microsoft’s “ballot screen” from 2010—well-intentioned, lightly used, ultimately ineffective.

Why this matters technically.  Search scale amplifies itself: more queries feed ranking models (machine-learned scoring formulas) that, in turn, improve relevance and attract still more users. Regulators see that flywheel—“data → model quality → market share”—as an entry barrier. By forcing Google to license portions of its index and anonymized query logs, the government hopes to short-circuit that reinforcement loop and let smaller engines fine-tune large language models (LLMs) on real traffic.

What’s next.  Closing arguments finished 30 May 2025, and Judge Mehta has signaled a decision before Labor Day. If he orders a break-up, expect a multiyear appeals gauntlet; if he opts for behavioural remedies, scrutiny will shift to compliance audits and quarterly data-sharing escrow. Either way, the ruling could redraw how every American reaches the web’s front door.