September 2, 2025, 23:44 GMT | Insight Google dodged the forcible sale of its Chrome browser and its Android operating system as a US federal judge today found the government overreached in seeking a structural fix to an illegal monopoly in the Internet search markets. However, the tech giant is banned from entering into exclusive contracts to distribute its products.

“Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment,” US District Judge Amit Mehta wrote.

“Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced [divestiture] of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints,” the judge’s 230-page order said (see here).

Mehta’s order dropped after the stock exchange closing bell. Google and Apple’s scrips surged in aftermarket trading, jumping as high as 6.8 percent and 2.8 percent respectively.

“Much has changed since the end of the liability trial, though some things have not. Google is still the dominant firm in the relevant product markets. No existing rival has wrested market share from Google. And no new competitor has entered the market. But artificial intelligence technologies, particularly generative AI (“GenAI”), may yet prove to be game changers,” the judge said.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs at Google noted that Mehta has imposed limits on how the tech giant distributes Google services, and the judge will require it to share search data with rivals. "We have concerns about how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy, and we’re reviewing the decision closely," she said in a blog post (see here).

“The court didn’t order all of our requested relief, and we are weighing our options. But the court did agree with the need for remedies that will restore competition and reopen the digital playing field, driving investment and innovation that will ensure America leads the next era of technology,” Gail Slater, assistant attorney general at the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, said in a post on X (see here).

“The United States will not tolerate the abuse of power by digital monopolies. Markets should be free, not manipulated or regulated by digital tyrants,” Slater said.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser expressed confidence that Google will lose an appeal of Mehta’s "strong liability decision."

“We are appreciative of the remedies that have been imposed, including remedies that encompass generative AI products, and we are studying the details of the Court’s remedies carefully. And, as time goes on, the court will learn — and can revisit — what more may be needed to restore competition,” Weiser said.

— 'Healthy dose of humility' —

Mehta said that the emergence of GenAI "changed the course of this case. No witness at the liability trial testified that GenAI products posed a near-term threat to GSEs [general search engines]."

The three-week long remedies trial in May thus had been as much about promoting competition among GSEs as ensuring that Google’s dominance in search does not carry over into the GenAI space.

Mehta said the court has broad discretion to impose remedies to effectively pry open competition in a market that has been closed by a monopolist’s illegal restraints.

"Notwithstanding this power, courts must approach the task of crafting remedies with a healthy dose of humility. This court has done so. It has no expertise in the business of GSEs, the buying and selling of search text ads, or the engineering of GenAI technologies," Mehta said.

"And, unlike the typical case where the court’s job is to resolve a dispute based on historic facts, here the court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future. Not exactly a judge’s forte," he said.

— Google’s exclusivity contracts, payments to partners —

Mehta adopted Google’s proposed remedy in its entirety. Specifically, Google cannot enter into or maintain any exclusive contract over the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant and the Gemini app, Mehta said.

This means Google cannot condition the licensing of the Play Store or any other Google application on the distribution, preloading or placement of Search, Chrome, Google Assistant or the Gemini app anywhere on a device.

It also cannot condition the receipt of revenue share payments for the placement of a Google app, Mehta ordered.

Google, however, will not be banned from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome or its GenAI products.

“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling —
downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban,” according to the order.

This means Google can continue paying billions of dollars to Apple, Mozilla and other business partners in the wireless carriers or device manufacturers space.

During trial at the US District Court for the District of Columbia, it was revealed that Google paid $26.34 billion in 2021 to make Google Search the default engine on iOS devices (see here).

— Sharing data, search text ads syndication services —

Google will also have to make available to qualified competitors certain search index and user-interaction data, Mehta said. Google won’t have to provide ads data, the judge said, as such sharing will “deny Google the fruits of its exclusionary acts and promote competition.”

“The court, however, has narrowed the datasets Google will be required to share to tailor the remedy to its anticompetitive conduct,” he said.

Google must also offer qualified competitors search and search text ads syndication services to enable those firms to deliver high-quality search results and ads to compete with Google while they develop their own search technologies and capacity. Such syndication, however, shall occur largely on ordinary commercial terms that are consistent with Google’s current syndication services, Mehta said.

In deviating from an EU remedy in their separate case against Google, Mehta said the tech giant will not have to present users with choice screens on its products or encourage its Android distribution partners to do the same.

“Precedent requires courts to avoid remedies that compel product design requirements, and in any event, choice screens have not been shown to enhance competition among GSEs,” the judge said.

Mehta said the Washington, DC, federal court will establish a technical committee to assist the DOJ, states and the court in implementing and enforcing the final judgment. The term of the judgment will be six years.

— GenAI —

One key question shaping the judge’s remedies ruling, he said, is whether it should encompass GenAI technologies and the companies that create them. “The answer is yes, at least in some respects.”

Google has conceded that imposing restrictions on the distribution of Google Assistant and Gemini is within the court’s power, the judge said. “In short, Google cannot use the same anticompetitive playbook for its GenAI products that it used for Search.”

The tech giant’s own product development decisions also undermine its argument that GenAI products should be excluded from the remedy order, Mehta said. While GenAI chatbots have not eliminated the need for GSEs, the products share a defining feature in their ability to “fulfill a broad array of information needs,” he said.

The order expands a proposed definition of “Qualified Competitor” to include GenAI companies that plan to invest and compete in search and search advertising markets, like Anthropic and Perplexity.

Mehta flagged how Google has expanded the universe of search queries by incorporating AI Overviews into Google search result pages and introducing “AI Mode.”

“Indeed, Google’s own witness, Apple executive Eddy Cue, testified that the volume of Google Search queries in Apple’s Safari web browser had declined for the first time in 22 years likely due to the emergence of GenAI chatbots,” Mehta said.

The judge’s order included an overview of the current GenAI market, which is “highly competitive” and includes well-financed firms with an “astonishing” amount of access to capital and a variety of products that have achieved widespread usage and continue to vie for best-in-class quality. In this context, Mehta specifically named Google, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, OpenAI, Perplexity and xAI.

While Google believes that the integration of AI technologies into search has made traditional search more competitive, “the market has shown otherwise,” Mehta said.

Microsoft believes it has closed the search quality gap, at least on desktop computers, by incorporating AI, the judge noted. But those product development decisions haven’t earned Bing any additional market share after Google’s exclusive distribution agreements allowed it to “operate free of any genuine competition for more than 10 years,” Mehta said.

So-called commercial queries, which allow for monetization through advertising, are not a common use case for GenAI application, the judge said. However, “The expectation is that GenAI products will come to serve these needs.”

“AI has unquestionably improved general search, but it has not yet fundamentally altered market dynamics,” Mehta said.

— Concessions to Google —

Google will not be required to share granular, query-level data with advertisers or provide them with more access to such data.

“Nor will it have to restore an ‘exact match’ keyword bidding option. Plaintiffs did not establish that these remedies would promote competition in the search text ads market,” the judge said.

However, the tech giant will be compelled to publicly disclose material changes it makes to its ad auctions. This is aimed at promoting greater transparency in search text ads pricing and to prevent Google from increasing prices by secretly fine-tuning its ad auctions.

Google also will not have to underwrite a nationwide public education campaign.

“That remedy does not fit Google’s violations and its terms are too indefinite,” Mehta said.

Additionally, Google will not have to modify its policies to offer website publishers more choice in how Google uses their content.

“This remedy bears no relationship to Google’s unlawful acts and is an improper demand to implement overly regulatory requirements,” the judge said. “Google will not be subject to an investment reporting requirement. It, too, bears no relationship to Google’s anticompetitive conduct.”

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