Google will not sell Chrome

The Washington, D.C., District Court has issued its ruling on the U.S. Department of Justice's request to force Google to sell Chrome.

The ruling reportedly stated that the company would not be forced to divest Chrome, and that the court would not include a conditional divestiture of the Android operating system in its final decision.

The ruling noted that Google had not used them to impose any illegal restrictions and that the plaintiffs had "gone too far" in seeking the forced disposal of these assets.

The decision stated that the company was not required to stop payments to distribution partners for some of its apps to be pre-installed or embedded on devices.

The decision ruled that the company would share certain search index and user interaction data with qualified competitors, and noted that this would encourage competition.

Antitrust lawsuit against Google

In a statement made by the US Department of Justice on January 24, 2023, it was announced that an "antitrust" lawsuit was filed against Google in the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia with the attorneys general of the states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.

The statement, which stated that the company monopolizes many digital advertising technology products, alleged that Google uses anti-competitive, exclusionary and illegal methods to eliminate or seriously reduce any threat to its dominance in the industry.

The statement explained that over the past 15 years, Google has neutralized or eliminated its ad technology rivals through acquisitions, and that the company has used its dominance in the digital ad market to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products and to prevent the use of rival products.

The statement stated that Google had thus reinforced its dominance in the sector and also included the content of the company's anti-competitive behavior.

The US Department of Justice asked a federal judge in November last year to force Google to sell its Chrome internet browser.