After successfully showing that Google unlawfully maintained a monopoly in general search services through default search agreements, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has proposed a series of remedies to address the anticompetitive practices at issue in the case. In a new insight, Director of Technology and Innovation Policy Jeffrey Westling reviews the proposed final judgment and considers some of the remedies’ potential harms to competition.

Key points:

• The DOJ has asked the court to force Google to divest its chrome web browser, as well as its Android mobile operating system if the other remedies prove ineffective, due to concerns that Google could self-preference its search product.
• While some of the proposed remedies could address the harms found by the court, many of the proposed remedies, such as forcing Google to divest Chrome, are largely unrelated to the specific anticompetitive default search agreements and would ultimately harm consumers and competition.
• The court has the authority to impose a variety of remedies to restore competition, but in doing so, it should ensure that the remedies are actually designed to address the competitive harms and not to simply punish Google for being successful.

Read the analysis