NEW YORK: The US said on Tuesday it may ask a judge to force Alphabet’s Google to divest parts of its business, such as its Chrome browser and Android operating system, that it says are used to maintain an illegal monopoly in online search.
In a landmark case, a judge found in August that Google, which processes 90 percent of US Internet searches, had built an illegal monopoly. The Justice Department’s proposed remedies have the potential to reshape how Americans find information on the Internet, while shrinking Google’s revenues and giving its competitors more room to grow.
“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” the Justice Department said.
The proposed fixes will also aim to keep Google’s past dominance from extending to the burgeoning business of artificial intelligence, prosecutors said.
The Justice Department is also considering asking for an order that would require Google to make available to rivals the indexes, data and models it uses for Google search and AI-assisted search features.
It might also ask the court to end Google’s payments to have its search engine pre-installed or set as the default on new devices.
Google has made annual payments — $26.3 billion in 2021 — to companies including Apple and other device manufacturers to ensure that its search engine remained the default on smartphones and browsers, keeping its market share strong.
Google called the proposals “radical” and said they “go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.”
Some of the ideas in the proposal had previously garnered support from Google’s smaller competitors such as reviews site Yelp and rival search engine company DuckDuckGo.
Yelp, which sued Google over search in August, says spinning off Google’s Chrome browser and AI services should be on the table. Yelp also wants Google to be prohibited from giving preference to Google’s local business pages in search results.
The Justice Department is expected to file a more detailed proposal with the court by Nov. 20. Google will have a chance to propose its own remedies by Dec. 20.
US District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in Washington was a major win for antitrust enforcers who have brought an ambitious set of cases against Big Tech companies over the past four years.
Google has said it plans to appeal, and that its search engine has won users with its quality. It adds that it faces robust competition from Amazon and other sites where users go directly to search for goods or services, and that users can choose other search engines as their default.
US considers breakup of Google in landmark search case
https://arab.news/pb6be
US considers breakup of Google in landmark search case
- In a landmark case, a US judge found in August that Google had built an illegal monopoly
- Justice Department’s proposed remedies have the potential to reshape how Americans find information on the Internet
Journalist working for German media arrested in Turkiye
- A Turkish journalist working for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has been arrested on accusations of “spreading false news” and “insulting the president“
ISTANBUL: A Turkish journalist working for the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has been arrested on accusations of “spreading false news” and “insulting the president,” the Istanbul prosecutor’s office has said.
Alican Uludag was arrested in Ankara on Thursday, the office said, on charges stemming from posts on a social media account.
Uludag’s lawyer said the journalist was being targeted for articles written for DW about the repatriation of Turkish citizens affiliated with the Daesh group.
“Alican Uludag was taken into custody (...) because of his article entitled ‘Turkiye Prepares to Repatriate Turkish Citizens Affiliated with the Islamic State’,” said attorney Tora Pekin.
Deutsche Welle said late Thursday that the “charges refer to a message published on X about a year and a half ago” in which Uludag “criticized measures taken by the Turkish government that allegedly led to the release of possible Daesh terrorists” and “accused the government of corruption.”
He was “arrested and taken away in front of his family by about thirty police officers. His home was searched and computer equipment was seized,” it said.
He is due to appear before prosecutors in Istanbul on Friday, the prosecutor’s office said.
According to a representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Erol Onderoglu, “the arrest of Alican Uludag is part of a process of judicial harassment against serious journalists.”
The media watchdog group denounced “the relentless arbitrary practices that are now targeting a journalist who may have disturbed the authorities because of his investigations.”
DW chief Barbara Massing demanded Uludag’s immediate release.
“That a journalist is treated like a common criminal, taken away by some thirty police officers and immediately transferred to Istanbul, constitutes targeted intimidation and shows the extent to which the government is massively repressing press freedom,” she said in a statement.
