Google may be forced to remove Android and Chrome

The US Department of Justice is heatedly debating what action to take against Google after a court ruled last week that the search engine giant had a monopoly on the search engine market.

Bloomberg and The New York Times report that some of the most discussed options at the agency include more extreme solutions: Google could be forced to abandon the Android mobile operating system and/or Chrome browser.

The Department of Justice believes that Android and Chrome contribute to Google’s dominance among search engines, as Google is the default search engine for both products.

Other options discussed include a requirement for Google to get rid of Google Ads, or for the company to license its data to competitors such as Microsoft Bing or DuckDuckGo.

According to Statista’s figures from earlier this year, Google clearly dominates among search engines. The search engine has a market share of over 91% per, with Microsoft’s Bing coming in a very distant second place with just over 3%.

Google was recently taken to court by the US Department of Justice, which accused the company of trying to acquire an illegal monopoly in the search engine market. A federal judge has now ruled in the case, reports The Verge, and Google will not be happy with the outcome.

The judge rules that Google has violated US competition laws. “Google is a monopolist and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly,” the court order said. According to the court, Google has a monopoly on ‘general search services’ and ‘general text advertisements in searches’.

Google has announced that it will appeal the decision. “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but has concluded that we cannot make it easily accessible,” said Kent Walker, the company’s head of global affairs.

The next step now is to determine what the penalties will be for the search engine giant. In a worst-case scenario, Google could be forced to spin off certain parts of its search engine services.