WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Bernama-Sputnik) – The United States is contemplating a forced breakup of Google’s parent company Alphabet over concerns of illegal monopolisation, reported Sputnik citing a Bloomberg report.
The US Justice Department is considering breaking up Alphabet as one of the possible ways to restore competition, while other options include coercing Google to share more data with competitors and implementing measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, the report said.
If the Justice Department chooses the tough option of splitting up the company, the most likely units it would target for divestment would include the Android operating system and Google’s web browser Chrome, the report said.
If successful, the breakup would become the biggest one since 1980s, when the US government dismantled telecommunications holding AT&T, according to the report.
On August 5, US district judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google has illegally monopolised general search services and general search text ads and had therefore violated US antitrust laws. Google has already announced its plans to appeal the ruling.
In October 2015, Google shareholders restructured the company, transferring its assets and those of several subsidiaries to Alphabet, making it the second-largest technology company in the world.
-- BERNAMA-SPUTNIK
