Google won't have to sell Chrome. But Chrome isn't Google's monopoly.

Last year, the District Court for the District of Columbia ruled to uphold the merits of claims brought by the Department of Justice and 38 other states alleging that Google violated antitrust laws in its generic search services and generic text advertising.

Specifically, the Court held that exclusive distribution agreements with browsers, device manufacturers, and operators, through which Google secured its default search engine, were in violation of the Sherman Act (the US antitrust law). This, the Court continued, prevented competitors from accessing users' searches and the related (meta)data.

Hence the decision to prohibit the signing or continuation of agreements that provide for the exclusive use of search features, Chrome, Google Assistant, and Gemini—the newly launched AI platform. However, the requests made by Google to forcibly divest Chrome (which OpenAI and Perplexity —i.e., Jeff Bezos) and Android had expressed interest in were rejected.

Why Chrome (and Android) were “saved”

It's no secret, ever since the days of Internet Explorer, that not all browsers are created equal. Therefore, the usability of a website—and even more so the service delivered through it—can be affected by the choice of which browser to support. This is so true that things still work this way today, and usability differences can be quite significant.

Developers can decide to build infrastructures compatible only with the most popular browsers, or a Big Tech company can unilaterally cease support for a particular technology—as happened in 2020 with Apple's discontinuation of Flash support. It's clear that the larger a browser's market share, the more widespread and widespread such decisions can be, so the dominance of one browser over others is certainly relevant in antitrust terms. But, according to the judge, this isn't the issue at hand.

As we wrote on these pages , and as the Court has pointed out, the issue isn't so much the software (whose source code, moreover, is freely reusable, so much so that it has given rise to several de-Googleized yet perfectly functional browsers), but rather access to user data and data generated by users through the use of search services. Therefore, forcing Google to sell Chrome would have caused unreasonable harm to the company, given that other remedies—precisely those that "open up" access to user data—already satisfy the need to rebalance competition.

What should Google do based on this decision?

While saving Chrome is certainly a significant achievement, the judge's other requirements are far from light. If the ruling is upheld at various levels of jurisdiction, Google will have to share access to data with competitors and will not be able to enter into exclusive contracts for search and AI features in ways that "cut out" other industry players.

A sensible approach

Regardless of the merits and final outcome of this dispute, it is worth highlighting an interesting element of this decision that places it—and not just literally—an ocean away from the ideological extremism that sometimes characterizes the European Union's pronouncements.

Rather than succumb to the temptation to adopt the (albeit legitimate) draconian measures requested by the opposing parties, the judge exercised considerable caution in deciding what to do. On the one hand, he targeted contractual exclusivity and the benefits derived from the large numbers generated by Google's conduct, which he deemed anticompetitive. On the other hand, however, he avoided adopting measures that would have irrationally led to Google's restructuring or the redesign of its products and services.

Not that it is impossible—just remember the breakup of Standard Oil—but that was not the case and therefore such a drastic measure was not taken.

Lack of user protection confirmed

The legal case is far from over. Google can appeal this decision all the way to the Supreme Court, so it will take time to reach its conclusion.

However, one certainty has been confirmed: what can be considered the most significant antitrust action against Big Tech since the one brought in 2001 against Microsoft, considers user data as a product to be shared or a hunting reserve to be accessed exclusively or on a limited basis without the "prey" having any say in the matter.

Strictly speaking, the topic falls outside the scope of antitrust law and therefore shouldn't have been addressed here. However, the issue of personal data cannot be overlooked. Therefore, it's possible that European national data protection authorities, if they have the strength to do so, could step in and weigh in on the US court's decisions.

Unless the US administration decides to react to what could be considered “interferences” in the autonomy of judges and the freedom of businesses (USA).