A Google breakup is on the table, say DOJ lawyers

Next up in my backlog of news to cover: the US Department of Justice’s proposed remedies for Google’s monopolistic abuse.

Now that Judge Amit Mehta has found Google is a monopolist, lawyers for the Department of Justice have begun proposing solutions to correct the company’s illegal behavior and restore competition to the market for search engines. In a new 32-page filing (included below), they said they are considering both “behavioral and structural remedies.“

That covers everything from applying a consent decree to keep an eye on the company’s behavior to forcing it to sell off parts of its business, such as Chrome, Android, or Google Play.
↫ Richard Lawler at The Verge

While I think it would be a great idea to break Google up, such an action taken in a vacuum seems to be rather pointless. Say Google is forced to spin off Android into a separate company – how is that relatively small Android, Inc. going to compete with the behemoth that is Apple and its iOS to which such restrictions do not apply? How is Chrome Ltd. going to survive Microsoft’s continued attempts at forcing Edge down our collective throats? Being a dedicated browser maker is working out great for Firefox, right?

This is the problem with piecemeal, retroactive measures to try and “correct” a market position that you have known for years is being abused – sure, this would knock Google down a peg, but other, even larger megacorporations like Apple or Microsoft will be the ones to benefit most, not any possible new companies or startups. This is exactly why a market-wide, equally-applied set of rules and regulations, like the European Union’s Digital Markets Act, is a far better and more sustainable approach.

Unless similar remedies are applied to Google’s massive competitors, these Google-specific remedies will most likely only make things worse, not better, for the American consumer.