Google faces off with US government in attempt to break up company in search monopoly case

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and ALAN SUDERMAN AP Hardware Writers WASHINGTON AP Google is confronting an existential threat as the U S leadership tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into an illegal monopoly The drama began to unfold Monday in a Washington courtroom as three weeks of hearings kicked off to determine how the company should be penalized for operating a monopoly in search In its opening arguments federal antitrust enforcers also urged the court to impose forward-looking remedies to prevent Google from using artificial intelligence to further its dominance This is a moment in time we re at an inflection point will we abandon the search field and surrender them to control of the monopolists or will we let competition prevail and give choice to future generations mentioned Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist The proceedings known in legal parlance as a remedy hearing are set to feature a parade of bystanders that includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai The U S Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition share its repository of valuable user details with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser Google s attorney John Schmidtlein disclosed in his opening announcement that the court should take a much lighter touch He announced the ruling body s heavy-handed proposed remedies wouldn t boost competition but instead unfairly reward lesser rivals with inferior innovation Google won its place in the region fair and square Schmidtlein revealed The moment of reckoning comes four-and-a-half-years after the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit alleging Google s search engine had been abusing its power as the internet s main gateway to stifle competition and innovation for more than a decade After the affair conclusively went to trial in a federal judge last year ruled Google had been making anti-competitive deals to lock in its search engine as the go-to place for digital information on the iPhone personal computers and other widely used devices including those running on its own Android system That landmark ruling by U S District Judge Amit Mehta sets up a high-stakes drama that will determine the penalties for Google s misconduct in a search region that it has defined since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in a Silicon Valley garage in Since that austere start Google has expanded far beyond search to become a powerhouse in email digital mapping online video web browsing smartphone tool and evidence centers Seizing upon its achievement in the search scenario the Justice Department is now setting out to prove that radical efforts must be taken to rein in Google and its corporate parent Alphabet Inc Google s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that no matter what occurs Google inevitably wins the Justice Department argued in documents outlining its proposed penalties The American people thus are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in return for a search engine the citizens may enjoy Although the proposed penalties were originally made under President Joe Biden s term they are still being embraced by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump whose first administration filed the event against Google Since the change in administrations the Justice Department has also attempted to cast Google s immense power as a threat to freedom too In his opening comment Dahlquist noted that top bureaucrats from the Justice Department were in the room to watch proceedings He commented their presence indicated that the situation had the full sponsorship of federal antitrust regulators both past and present The fact that this occurrence was filed in tried in under two different administrations and joined by states demonstrates the non-partisan nature of this circumstance and our proposed remedies Dahlquist reported Related Articles Wall Street and the dollar tumble as investors retreat further from the United States The US has a single rare earths mine Chinese export limits are energizing a push for more A US citizen was held for pickup by ICE even after proving he was born in the country The Abrego Garcia matter pulls Democrats into the immigration debate Trump wants to have Deadly US airstrike on Yemeni oil port appears to escalate Trump s campaign against the Houthis Dahlquist also reported that Mehta would be hearing a lot about AI perhaps more than you want your honor and noted top executives from AI companies like ChatGPT would be called to testify He declared the court s remedies should include provisions to make sure that Google s AI product Gemini isn t used to strengthen its existing search monopoly We believe that Google can and will attempt to circumvent the court s remedies if it is not included Dahlquist revealed Gen AI is Google s next evolution to keep their vicious cycle spinning Schmidtlein Google s attorney disclosed rival AI companies had seen enormous advancement in contemporary years and were doing just fine Google is also sounding alarms about the proposed requirements to share online search facts with rivals and the proposed sale of Chrome posing privacy and measure risks The breadth and depth of the proposed remedies risks doing notable damage to a complex ecosystem Several of the proposed remedies would imperil browser developers and jeopardize the digital defense of millions of consumers Google lawyers disclosed in a filing leading up to hearings The showdown over Google s fate marks the climax of the biggest antitrust situation in the U S since the Justice Department sued Microsoft in the late s for leveraging its Windows platform for personal computers to crush anticipated rivals The Microsoft battle culminated in a federal judge declaring the company an illegal monopoly and ordering a partial breakup a remedy that was eventually overturned by an appeals court Google intends to file an appeal of Mehta s ruling from last year that branded its search engine as an illegal monopoly but can t do so until the remedy hearings are completed After closing arguments are presented in late May Mehta intends to make his decision on the remedies before Labor Day The search scenario marked the first in a succession of antitrust cases that have been brought against a litany of tech giants that include Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms which is at this moment fighting charges of running an illegal monopoly in social media in another Washington D C trial Other antitrust cases have been brought against both Apple and Amazon too The Justice Department also targeted Google s digital advertising structure in a separate antitrust event that resulted last week in another federal judge s decision that located the company was abusing its power in that field too That ruling means Google will be heading into another remedy hearing that could once again raise the specter of a breakup later this year or early next year Liedtke announced from San Francisco