Google Won’t Be Forced to Sell Chrome, But Must Share Search Data With Rivals

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered Google to share critical search data with competitors while allowing the tech giant to retain ownership of its Chrome browser.

The decision, announced Tuesday by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, represents a significant victory in the government’s ongoing battle against Google’s search monopoly that has dominated the market for over a decade.

The court’s remedies target Google’s anticompetitive practices without requiring the dramatic step of forcing a Chrome sale. Instead, the ruling focuses on breaking down the exclusionary agreements that have locked competitors out of the search market.

Google will be prohibited from maintaining exclusive contracts relating to the distribution of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, and the Gemini app across devices and platforms.

Under the new requirements, Google cannot condition licensing agreements on the placement of its search products or tie revenue-sharing payments to maintaining Google Search as the default option for more than one year.

The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division analysts noted that these practices created a “self-reinforcing cycle of monopolization” that effectively shut out potential competitors while reducing innovation and consumer choice.

The most technically significant aspect of the ruling involves mandatory data sharing provisions.

Google will be required to make certain search index and user-interaction data available to qualified competitors, fundamentally altering the competitive landscape.

This data sharing requirement addresses one of the primary barriers competitors face when attempting to develop alternative search engines.

# Example of potential API structure for mandated data access
class SearchDataAPI:
    def get_search_index(self, query_parameters):
        # Return anonymized search index data
        pass

    def get_user_interaction_metrics(self, competitor_id):
        # Provide aggregated user behavior patterns
        pass

Additionally, Google must offer search and search text ads syndication services to enable rivals to deliver competitive search results.

This syndication requirement effectively opens Google’s advertising infrastructure to competitors, allowing them to build their own capacity while leveraging Google’s existing technology.

The ruling stems from a case filed during President Trump’s first term in October 2020, ultimately supported by 49 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia.

Following a nine-week bench trial in 2023 and a 15-day remedies trial in May 2025, the court concluded that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by maintaining its monopoly through anticompetitive practices that controlled approximately 90 percent of all U.S. search queries.

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