A federal judge ruled Tuesday in a high -level antitrust case against Google with good and bad news for the technology giant. The good news for Google is that it will not have to sell its Chrome browser, which was a very real possibility. Google’s actions have skyrocketed after the hours of negotiations to the news.
The bad news for Google was that it will be necessary to share data with its competitors and cannot sign many exclusive contracts that have helped the company to become so dominant in industry.
The decision, which is available on the court auditor, comes from the judge Amit P. Mehta of the American district court for the District of Columbia, which ruled for the first time in August 2024 that Google’s research activities were an illegal monopoly.
“Google will not be required to disintegrate Chrome; the Court will not include a contingent disinvestment of the Android operating system in the final judgment,” said the decision. “The applicants overestimated in the search for forced disinvestment of these key assets, which Google did not use to perform illegal constraints.”
The Chrome browser has about 3.5 billion users, which is quite impressive when you remember that there are only 8.1 billion people throughout the planet. And the company of IA Perplexity even made an offer not stressed by Chrome last month, although it was considered a blow by many observers of the technological industry. Perplexity offered $ 34.5 billion but was only evaluated at the time at around $ 18 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Tuesday’s decision explained that Google will have to share “user research and interaction data index, but not announcements”, with “qualified competitors”. The decision also indicates that the company “will not be prohibited to enter or maintain any exclusive contract relating to the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant and the Gemini application”, although there are many sculptures which will allow Google to enter contracts so as not to harm the downstream companies.
Google will also not be required to present to users “choice screens on its products or to encourage its Android distribution partners to do the same”, according to the decision. And it will not have to take out a national education campaign nationally. The US government has presented various remedies after Google was deemed a monopoly, but the judge considered some as “incorrect” requests.
Reached to comment on email, a Google spokesperson directed Gizmodo to a declaration published online:
Earlier in the day, an American court supervising the lawsuit of the Ministry of Justice on the way in which we will distribute the search made a decision on the next steps.
Today’s decision recognizes how the industry has changed through the advent of AI, which gives people so much more ways to find information. This highlights what we have said since this case was tabled in 2020: competition is intense and people can easily choose the services they want. This is why we do not agree with the initial decision of the Court in August 2024 on responsibility.
Now, the court has imposed limits on the way we distribute Google Services and will force us to share research data with competitors. We have concerns about how these requirements will have an impact on our users and their privacy, and we are looking closely at the decision. The court recognized that the disinvestment of Chrome and Android would have exceeded the emphasis on the distribution of research and would have harmed consumers and our partners.
As always, we continue to focus on what matters – build innovative products that people choose and love.
At least one of Google’s competitors was not satisfied with the decision to be too forgiving on technological society. “We do not think that the remedies ordered by the court will oblige the necessary changes to adequately approach the illegal behavior of Google,” DuckDuckGo spokesman said on Tuesday.
“Google will always be allowed to continue using its monopoly to retain competitors, including in the AI research,” continued the spokesperson. “Consequently, consumers will continue to suffer. We believe that Congress should now intervene so that Google quickly does what it fears: competing on a playground.”
It seems very likely that Google engages in a certain lobbying of the Trump administration behind the scenes, because this case is on appeal. President Trump did not hide the fact that he regularly meets powerful people in the business world, whether in camera as he did with the CEO of Intel Lip Bu-Tan or more publicly as he did with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Trump publicly castigated Bu-Tan but then met the Intel chief, which led the United States government to participate 10% in the company. This decision shocked many people in Wall Street, even among the people who support the president. But it seems that Trump is more than ready to intervene in private companies when he thinks that it is to his advantage.
Will Trump make a game for Google in one way or another? The technology giant does not need cash injection like Intel. But there is always something to exchange when powerful interests need a favor. Google contributed to $ 1 million to the Trump inauguration fund and Google Sundar Pichai CEO visited Trump in Mar-A-Lago shortly after the elections.
Pichai was even spotted in religious service on January 20, 2025 before the inauguration of Trump, just there behind the meta-PDG Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos.
It should be very interesting to see what is going on while Google calls on it.
