Google says to appeal online search antitrust ruling

Google said Saturday it will appeal a ruling against it for anti-competitive practices in online search, a day after urging a US judge to reject the suggestion it spin off its Chrome browser.

"We will wait for the Court's opinion. And we still strongly believe the Court's original decision was wrong, and look forward to our eventual appeal," the tech giant wrote on X.

Google was found guilty in the summer of 2024 of illegal practices to establish and maintain its monopoly in online search by a federal judge in Washington.

The Justice Department is now demanding remedies that could transform the digital landscape: Google's divestiture from its Chrome browser and a ban on entering exclusivity agreements with smartphone manufacturers to install the search engine by default.

It is also asking that the California-based company be forced to share the data used to produce search results on Chrome.

The department's proposal "reserves the right for the government to decide who gets Google users' data. Not the Court," Google said Saturday.

"While we heard a lot about how the remedies would help various well-funded competitors (w/ repeated references to Bing), we heard very little about how all this helps consumers," Google added, referring to the Microsoft-owned search engine.

The firm has proposed much more limited measures, including giving phone manufacturers the possibility to pre-install its Google Play app store but not Chrome or the search engine.

The Friday hearing devoted to arguments marked the end of the trial to determine Google's penalty. The judge's decision is expected by August.

Source: AFP