US court rejects Google breakup
The US government failed in its attempt to break up internet giant Google . Judge Amit Mehta, who was hearing the case, ruled in Washington that the company should not be forced to divest itself of the Chrome web browser and the Android mobile operating system. Mehta emphasized that the government had gone too far with its demands.
Not exclusive, but prominentAt the same time, in his 230-page ruling, he prohibited Google from entering into exclusive agreements for the distribution of its services – which, in addition to Chrome, affect web search and the AI software Gemini. However, Google will generally still be able to pay other companies, such as Apple or Firefox developer Mozilla, to pre-install its services or prominently display them.
Apple receives billions of dollars for pre-installing Google Search on iPhones. For Mozilla, pre-installing Google Search in the Firefox browser is a key source of revenue.
In the European Union, browser users are now explicitly asked which search engine they want to use. However, the judge rejected such a mandatory choice for the United States, which would prevent tacitly selected default settings.
Google must share data with competitorsAccording to the court ruling, Google will likely have to share some data from its search engine with competitors. This includes parts of the search engine index that Google creates when crawling the internet, as well as some information about user interactions. The data is intended to help rival search engines like Microsoft's Bing and DuckDuckGo, as well as AI companies like ChatGPT developer OpenAI, develop their competing products.
The Google group announced that it still needs to analyze the ruling. It is concerned about the potential consequences for data protection that sharing search engine information could have. It had previously stated that Google intends to appeal. Therefore, it could be years before a final decision is made.
wa/fab (dpa, rtr, afp)
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