DOJ proposes breakup of Google divisions to address antitrust findings

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has submitted remedies Google must take to a federal district judge in response to findings that the company uses anti-competitive practices in its business.

In August, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google illegally monopolized the search engine and general advertising markets through the use of its free Chrome web browser, Android operating system and the Google Play store.

Among the remedies proposed by the DOJ for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, according to Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, are:

• Splitting off Chrome or Android from the company; 
• Forcing Google to share search data with competitors; 
• Hampering Google’s AI tools; 
• Restricting how Google promotes its search; 
• Changing the online advertising market dominated by Google. 

The case presents parallels to the 2001 Microsoft antitrust case, similarities the judge acknowledged. 

In that case, Microsoft was charged by the DOJ with using its free Internet browser to prevent a rival browser, called Navigator, from competing on an equal footing. 

“Just as the agreements in that case ‘help[ed] keep usage of Navigator below the critical 

level necessary for Navigator or any other rival to pose a real threat to Microsoft’s monopoly,’ Google’s distribution agreements have constrained the query volumes of its rivals, thereby inoculating Google against any genuine competitive threat,” Mehta wrote. 

Former U.S. Rep. Ken Buck, who wrote a book about Big Tech’s war on free speech, told The Lion via email: “Clearly the advertising business is anti-competitive.”   

Several of the proposed remedies the DOJ set out for Google could have large consequences for the search engine king.  

Forcing Google to share its “indexes, data, feeds, and models used for Google search, including those used in AI-assisted search features” would allow rivals to provide alternative search engines. The result would breakup what Adweek called Google’s “walled garden” advantage in search engine results. 

A walled garden is a closed system where technology companies keep competition out through control over software or hardware. 

Additionally, the DOJ is proposing to allow online publishers the option of blocking Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) from searching their site by “crawling” it to capture content, while still allowing Google to crawl sites to produce search results. 

Publishers claim AI essentially copies and then plagiarizes content to produce results, thus stealing the results of their work, reported Adweek. 

In a first of its kind study, researchers at Penn State University and the University of Mississippi found “verbatim plagiarism” with Open AI’s GPT-2. 

“The vulnerability of [AI] models to plagiarism can adversely impact societal and ethical norms, particularly in literary disciplines that are intimately connected to creativity and originality,” said the research report’s conclusion. 

However, Google’s Mulholland argues that the restriction on AI crawling sites would hurt America at “precisely the moment that we need to encourage investment, new business models, and American technological leadership.” 

But the federal court’s findings of antitrust violations against Google suggest Google is the one hampering new business models and new technological leadership in America.  

It’s unclear if the DOJ’s proposed AI restrictions would just apply to Google AI or if it could lead to a general restriction on all AIs crawling websites to train their language models.   

One AI executive, who spoke to The Lion on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, said in his mind the legal precedent would almost certainly apply because, in fact, AI plagiarizes content. 

While conservatives would welcome a diminution of Google’s monopoly power in both search and advertising, the antitrust case, in and of itself, probably has no immediate effect on widespread claims that Google’s search results are prejudiced against conservative thought and opinion. 

But the DOJ remedies might crack the door open for search engine competitors just enough to provide an innovative response to Google’s perceived censorship practices.