U.S. Government asks Google to sell Chrome

The U.S. Department of Justice requested that Google sell Chrome, the world’s most widely used browser.

It is one of the measures proposed by the department in a court document filed late Wednesday with the aim of getting the technology giant to abandon its monopoly position in online search.

Government lawyers also recommended that Judge Amit Mehta force the company to stop signing contracts with companies like Apple and Samsung that aim to have its search engine used by default in phones and browsers.

The recommendations document with actions Google would have to take followed a landmark ruling in August by Judge Mehta that concluded that Google had illegally crushed its competition.

A group of states joined the Justice Department’s brief. They argued that the proposed changes would open up a market that is now monopolized.

“Restoring competition in the markets for general search and text search ads as they are now will require reviving the competitive process that Google has long stifled,” government lawyers wrote to the court.

In its response, Google said the Justice Department “chose to push a radical interventionist agenda that will harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership.”

Kent Walker, president of Global Affairs at Google, called the Justice Department’s proposal “wildly overblown” and said it “goes miles further than the court’s decision.”

“It will break down a range of Google products, even beyond search, that people love and find useful in their daily lives,” Walker said.

Google is expected to respond to the government’s request for relief with its own by December 20. The judge’s decision is expected in the northern summer of 2025.