Google proposes to relax search agreements

NEW YORK: Alphabet’s Google proposed last Friday to relax its agreements with Apple and others to set Google as the default search engine on new devices, in a bid to respond to a U.S. ruling that it illegally dominates online research.

The proposal is much narrower than the government’s push to force Google to sell its Chrome browser, which Google has called a drastic attempt to intervene in the search market.

Google urged U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington to tread carefully in his ruling on what the company must do to restore competition, following his ruling that the company has an illegal monopoly in online search and associated advertising.

Courts have warned against imposing antitrust measures that inhibit innovation, Google said in court papers.

This is especially true “in an environment where remarkable innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) are rapidly changing the way people interact with many online products and services, including search engines,” Google said.

Although Google plans to appeal the decision at the end of the case, it says the next phase of “appeals” should focus on its distribution agreements with browser developers, mobile device makers and retailers. mobile phone operators.

The judge ruled that the agreements give Google a “major, largely invisible advantage over its competitors” and result in most devices in the United States being preloaded with Google’s search engine.

The deals are difficult to end, the judge said, especially for Android makers, who must agree to install Google Search in order to include Google’s Play Store on their devices.

To solve this problem, Google could make them non-exclusive and, for Android phone makers, decouple its Play Store from Chrome and search, the company said in its proposal.

Google would allow browser developers who agree to set its default search engine to review that decision annually under the proposal.

Unlike the government’s proposal, Google’s would not end revenue-sharing agreements, which pass a portion of Google-generated advertising revenue from search to device and software publishers that market it as a search engine by default.

Independent browser developers, including Mozilla, which makes Firefox, have said the funds are essential to their operations.

Apple received around US$20 billion from its deal with Google in 2022 alone.

Kamyl Bazbaz, a spokesperson for search engine competitor DuckDuckGo, said the proposal attempted to maintain the status quo.

“Once a court finds a violation of competition laws, the remedies must not only stop the illegal behavior and prevent its recurrence, but also restore competition in the affected markets,” he said. he declared.

Google’s proposal sets the stage for a trial Mehta will hold in April, in which the U.S. Department of Justice and a coalition of states will seek to demonstrate the need for far-reaching solutions, including forcing Google to sell Chrome and potentially its Android mobile operating system. .

The government plans to call witnesses from OpenAI, AI research startup Perplexity and Microsoft, according to court documents.

Prosecutors also want Google to stop paying to be the default search engine, stop investing in competing search and query-based AI products, and license its research results and its technology to its competitors.

The proposals aim to spur innovation in online search, where Mehta found that Google’s overwhelming market share prevents competitors from collecting the search data needed to improve their products and prevents Google from expanding its dominance in AI research. -Reuters