Antitrust Remedies for Google: A Closer Look at DOJ's Proposals

Sean Heather
Senior Vice President, International Regulatory Affairs & Antitrust, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Published

May 28, 2025

The U.S. Chamber has been closely monitoring the Department of Justice’s search case against Google (United States of America v. Google). Last year, Judge Mehta ruled that Google’s exclusive contracts violated antitrust laws. This action amounted to illegally maintaining, rather than creating, its market power. The Chamber commented then that the opinion was hardly a scathing indictment against Google, but rather a close judgement call. Such a narrow judgement call inevitably makes it hard to see “break-up” as a remedy fit for purpose.

Now, with arguments in the remedies trial nearly complete, what are we learning?

DOJ Swings for the Fences: A Closer Look at the Proposed Remedies

Judge Mehta ruled that Google’s long-term exclusive contracts making it the default search engine on mobile devices resulted in Google paying to maintain its market dominance rather than earning it. However, rather than targeting the issue at hand, DOJ has aggressively asked the court to consider a range of remedies. Slide seven of DOJ’s slide deck (below) shows what the government calls Google’s ‘Feedback Loop,’ which they argue operates like a flywheel.

DOJ claims are as follows:

Google's payments to be the exclusive default lead to increased searches on its platform, providing more data.
This data enhances Google's search capabilities and improves targeted advertising, generating more revenue.
This cycle enables Google to continue funding exclusive agreements.

This leads DOJ to suggest remedies at each stage of the cycle. They suggest:

Prohibiting payments (Defaults/Money)
Divesting Chrome (Searches)
Enforcing data sharing (Data)
Implementing advertising restrictions (Quality).

Such excessive measures may be dangerous to the competition ecosystem and entirely unnecessary. Simply preventing Google from paying to be the exclusive default on mobile devices could effectively disrupt the cycle, making the DOJ's comprehensive approach seem overly broad. This level of interventionism is hard to understand because a simple prohibition barring Google from paying to be the exclusive default on mobile devices would end the “virtuous circle.” One only needs to disrupt the front end of the flywheel to crater its effect—little wonder then, that DOJ’s campaign is excessively and self-evidently broad.

Restoring Competition? Evaluating DOJ’s Approach

DOJ contends that addressing anticompetitive conduct or merely breaking the flywheel is not enough. Instead, DOJ argues that it must be equally important that the courts "restore" competition in the marketplace. Restoring competition is an important and indeed laudable objective of any antitrust remedy, but the facts of the case matter greatly. Judge Mehta’s decision finds that Google obtained its market power legally, by being the better search engine before any exclusive contracts were signed. As noted by several former antitrust enforcers in their amicus brief, filed on behalf of neither party, the court’s remedy should not seek to completely level the playing field amongst competitors because Google’s advantage came from its superior quality. This fact suggests DOJ’s more aggressive remedy proposals, like divestiture, should not be used to attack Google’s legal market position the company enjoyed before the exclusive contracts were signed.

Markets evolve and it is impossible to go back in time. Today, despite Google’s paid exclusive contracts in mobile, artificial intelligence is injecting fresh competition into every market sector—including search. And the competition is intensifying. The reality suggests that Google’s dominant position sans exclusive default agreements is more tenuous today than at any time in recent years.

Balancing Act: A Call for Caution

Overly aggressive antitrust remedies chill incentives for companies to compete. We should all remain wary of allowing the government to restructure markets based on complex antitrust cases. The Neo-Brandeisian faithful may believe that the government knows best, but long experience has taught us that measured remedies are the better approach.

Regardless of the remedy imposed by Judge Mehta the case, both the violation and the remedy, are likely to be appealed. The Chamber’s policy priority is to ensure antitrust remedies are narrowly tailored to the violation, while what the government seeks against Google seems overly broad.