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Google may soon be forced to sell off Chrome if a judge is convinced

Google may soon be forced to sell its web browser, Google Chrome if a judge approves a recent request from the US Department of Justice.

Google may soon be forced to sell off Chrome if a judge is convinced
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Junior Editor
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TL;DR: Google may be forced to sell Google Chrome due to antitrust concerns, as the Department of Justice seeks to address the browser market's imbalance. Proposed changes include data licensing, ad transparency, and consumer data protection.

Google may be forced to sell off Google Chrome, the world's most popular internet browser that is home to 61% of all internet users.

Google may soon be forced to sell off Chrome if a judge is convinced 656151

The possibility of Google having to sever one of the arms of its core business comes from people familiar with the matter who recently spoke to Bloomberg, which reports top antitrust officials are planning on asking the court on Wednesday for Google to be forced to sell off Chrome, to bring fairness back to the browser market that has been heavily leaning in Google's favor for quite some time.

The changes to Google were proposed by the Department of Justice in a court filing last month and list other measures that would be a blow to Google's business, such as the requirement for data licensing, transparency for advertisers to see where the ads they are paying for appear, and guardrails for consumers to protect them against Google hoarding user data.

As you can probably imagine, Google plans on appealing the ruling in an effort to prevent any major changes to its business, with the company's vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, telling Bloomberg the DOJ "continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case." She warned that "the government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed."

Reports indicate the DOJ can seek an order requiring Chrome to be sold, but Bloomberg's sources say that "option" will only be pursued if all other non-structural remediation tactics fail.

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Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest science, space, and artificial intelligence news. Jak's love for science, space, and technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms.

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