US DOJ To Propose Google Penalties By End Of Year

A US federal judge on Friday gave the Department of Justice until the end of the year to outline remedies for Google’s anti-competitive conduct around internet search, following a landmark decision last month.

The DOJ should then prepare its case in time for the remedies phase of the trial next spring, said US District Judge Amit Mehta at a court hearing in Washington, DC on Friday.

The hearing was the first since Mehta ruled Google had acted illegally to maintain its search monopoly in an August ruling.

The Justice Department is reportedly considering forcing Google to divest parts of its business, such as its Android mobile operating system or Chrome web browser, in order to prevent its anti-competitive conduct from recurring.

Remedies

Another possible target could be the company’s more than $25 billion (£19bn) in payments to firms including Apple and Samsung to maintain it as the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.

Mehta’s timeline is intended to allow a final ruling on penalties to be reached by next August, nearly five years after the Justice Department filed its initial case.

He said March and April would be the best months in his court calendar for the penalty trial to take place.

Justice Department lawyers said they would need substantial time to develop a comprehensive proposal on remedies, and said they will need to include Google’s recent deployment of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in search.

DOJ lawyer David Dahlquist noted that since the case was brought Google has rebranded its Bard generative AI to Gemini.

AI search

“What else are they thinking about? What else is beyond that?” he told the hearing.

Google attorney John Schmidtlein said the company would need a detailed proposal from prosecutors and would be likely to seek information from Microsoft and OpenAI to prepare any counter-argument on AI search.

The company has said it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling.

Mehta gave both sides until 13 September to file a proposed timeline that includes the Justice Department disclosing its proposed remedies before the end of the year.