Google makes counterproposal in monopoly lawsuit: ‘Extreme remedies are discouraged’

Google is proposing some measures to dismantle the monopoly around its search engine. The company is appealing an earlier ruling.

The Google lawsuit is one of the largest antitrust lawsuits in the United States of the twenty-first century. In August, Google was officially labeled a monopolist: a ruling with potentially dire consequences. Google is not simply resigning itself to that and has filed a counterproposal with the Department of Justice (DOJ), summarizing it in a blog post.

According to Google, the crux of the lawsuit is a contract issue. One of the reasons Google is so dominant today is that many browsers and operating system offer Google as the default search engine. Google also pays hefty sums of money for that, the lawsuit revealed .

‘Free’ choice

Google’s counterproposal, therefore, seeks to address this in particular. Google proposes that competing browsers such as Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox can continue to offer the search engine and generate revenue from the partnership. At the same time, browsers should be allowed to make agreements with the search engines they feel offer the best user experience.

One possibility Google suggests is to allow multiple default search engines across platforms and browser modes. That means, for example, having a different default search engine set on your smartphone than on a tablet, or using a different search engine when browsing in incognito mode.

Google also wants to cooperate to some degree with DOJ’s demand to pull its search dominance away from Android. Every Android phone today has the Google apps pre-installed, but that may change. Phone manufacturers decide for themselves which search engines to offer in addition to Google Search, which is already the case in the EU. It should also become easier and clearer for users how to change the default search engine.

It is notable that Google includes the Gemini app in the proposal, which in principle is not the subject of the lawsuit. Google seems to be anticipating that Gemini may be subject to antitrust claims in the future because it is deeply integrated into the tech giant’s ecosystem.

Extreme remedies

If it were up to Google, the proposed countermeasures would fully comply with the violations identified by the court. In this way, Google hopes to escape what it describes as “extreme remedies. Too far-reaching measures would not only harm Google, but also consumers and the entire U.S. tech industry, it sounds. In doing so, Google cites a host of precedents that support that argument.

What Google’s counteroffer deliberately does not talk about is DOJ’s proposal that the search giant should share its search data with competing search engines to improve their products. That data is the Google search engine’s secret sauce, so it should come as no surprise that it doesn’t want to give it away lightly.

Figs after Easter

With this counterproposal, Google is preparing its appeal. That will take place in April. After the appeal, the implications of the lawsuit for Google will become clear. The company may face a hefty fine, but thus may have to spin off some of its services.

Even if it came to that, it remains to be seen whether it would change much in practice. Google’s monopoly is firmly entrenched and people have a habit of sticking with what they already know. Even if the doors of the Internet were opened to other players, it is doubtful that they could effectively make a difference.