Pressure on Google is mounting in the United States. The Department of Justice has reiterated the demand for Chrome to be sold. It was stated that the company could continue its investments in artificial intelligence with prior notification.

In the United States, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has renewed its request for Google to divest Chrome browser. The Department of Justice initially proposed that Google should sell Chrome last year during the Joe Biden administration. The Department remained committed to this plan under the second Trump administration as well. The DOJ announced that it had not altered the fundamental components of the initial proposal, which includes the divestiture of Chrome and prohibiting payments related to search to distribution partners. Concerns were raised about the company using its substantial capital to gain influence in artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, the proposal did not call for Google to divest its investments in the field of artificial intelligence, including the billions of dollars invested in Anthropic. It was stated that prior notification about artificial intelligence investments would be sufficient. Google, on the other hand, finds the DOJ’s recommendations excessive and is opposing them. Google currently holds about 90% of the online search market share.

ANTITRUST CASE AGAINST GOOGLE In an announcement made by the U.S. Department of Justice on January 24, 2023, it was reported that attorneys general from the states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in the Eastern District of Virginia District Court. The announcement stated that Google had monopolized numerous digital advertising technology products and used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and illegal methods to eliminate or significantly reduce any threats to its dominance in the industry. The statement described how Google had rendered ineffective or eliminated advertising technology competitors through acquisitions in the past 15 years, and how the company had forced more publishers and advertisers to use their products through its dominance in the digital advertising market while blocking the use of rival products. It was mentioned that this strengthened Google’s dominance in the industry, detailing the anti-competitive behavior of the company. The U.S. Department of Justice had filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020 for monopolizing search and search advertising.