Since 2023, Google has come under the scrutiny of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) over maintaining a monopoly in the internet search market, an allegation that was approved by the court last year. As a part of the ongoing antitrust lawsuit, the DOJ has proposed that Google must share its data with rival companies.
As reported by Reuters, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified on Wednesday morning at a trial in Washington to defend his company"s stance in the case. Pichai has alleged that forcing Google to share search index and search query data with rival companies could stifle Google"s ability to innovate and harm its research and development (R&D) efforts.
Google CEO added that proposed remedies by the DOJ are "extraordinary" and amount to a "defacto divestiture of our IP related to search." He further alleged, "It would be trivial to reverse engineer and effectively build Google search from the outside."
Also, Pichai said these remedies would make it "unviable to invest in R&D the way we have for the past two decades." The lawsuit aims to boost competition in the online search market, and the DOJ has concluded that one way to do so would be to force Google to share its secretive search data with rival platforms.
However, the DOJ"s proposed remedies extend beyond data sharing. The agency has also asked the court to stop Google"s payments to companies like Apple and Samsung, which aim to secure Google"s position as the default search engine.
Most importantly, the DOJ wants to break Google"s dominance in search by forcing the tech giant to sell the Chrome browser to another buyer. So far, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Yahoo have expressed interest in buying Chrome.
This week, Parisa Tabriz, the General Manager of Google Chrome, also testified in court to defend Google"s ownership of Chrome. She said that Google is the only company that can run Chrome and that some of the browser"s vital privacy features rely on Google"s infrastructure.