Google to court: we’ll change our Apple deal, but please let us keep Chrome

The court found that Google was responsible for illegally monopolizing online search and that its remedy should be to reset the market and allow competitors to compete fairly. Google (apparently) doesn’t agree it’s monopolizing, but not before it can appeal The basic conclusion is that it attempts to limit the consequences of failure.

Google argued that the search transactions were at the heart of the case, so they were the ones the court should target. Under the proposal, Google wouldn’t be able to strike deals with Android phone makers that require adding mobile search in exchange for access to other Google apps. It cannot require phone manufacturers to exclude rival search engines or third-party browsers. Browser companies like Mozilla will gain greater flexibility in setting rival search engines as the default.

Perhaps the biggest concession is that the agreement will clearly end Google’s Long term multi-billion dollar search deal with Apple. It would prohibit Google from signing an agreement to make Google search the default engine for any “Apple-proprietary features, including Siri and Spotlight” in the United States — unless the agreement allows Apple to choose a different default search engine on its browser each year, and It is “explicitly” allowed” to promote other search engines.

In response to the Justice Department’s concerns that Google is locking in competitors’ artificial intelligence search tools and chatbots, Google is proposing a ban on requiring phone manufacturers to add its Gemini Assistant mobile app to access other Google products.

The government proposed a ten-year limit, but Google’s counter-proposal was only for three years – it argued no more was necessary because “the pace of innovation in search is so fast” that regulating a “rapidly changing industry” like search would be Slow down innovation.

If the court accepts Google’s streamlined proposal vis-à-vis the Justice Department, the company could lose some lucrative or strategically advantageous deals, but its business would remain intact. It doesn’t have to spin off Chrome or face the threat of an Android divestment order. And it doesn’t need to share many potential signals to help it figure out how to provide useful search results so that competitors can catch up and become a real competitive pressure, as the Justice Department hopes.

Both Google’s and the Justice Department’s proposals are essentially starting points for judges’ work. But Google believes it can more easily sell a simple proposal that addresses the main specific issues raised in the trial. Google is likely to tell the court that it positions the government’s proposal as extreme, beyond the scope of the judge’s previous rulings, and could even be overturned on appeal.

At least this didn’t go down well with one of Google’s competitors, the search engine company DuckDuckGo. “Google’s proposal seeks to maintain the status quo and change as little as possible,” spokesperson Kamyl Bazbaz said in a statement. The two sides will begin arguments in federal court in Washington, D.C., on April 22.