NEW YORK, Oct 8 (Askume) – The United States said in a court filing on Tuesday that it is considering asking a judge to order Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) to sell parts of its business that have helped the big tech company grow.
Prosecutors said such action was one of the possible remedies that could be brought forward in the landmark case, in which a judge found that Google, which handles 90% of U.S. online searches, has the ability to reshape the way Americans find information online and has established an illegal monopoly .
The Justice Department is expected to submit a more detailed proposal to the court by November 20. Google will come up with a solution by December 20.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington is a major victory for antitrust enforcers, who have brought a series of ambitious cases against Big Tech companies over the past four years.
Google said it plans to appeal and said its search engine has won over users through its quality. Google says it faces threat from Amazon AMZN.O
Some companies that compete with Google have tried to be different.
Review site Yelp (YELP.N), which sued Google in August over search-related issues, said it should consider separating Google’s Chrome browser and artificial intelligence services. Yelp also wants to prevent Google from prioritizing its local business pages in search results that compete with Yelp.
Adam Epstein, president and co-chief executive of search advertising company AdMarketplace, said threatening to sell part of Google’s business could be a way to get less drastic action.
“Unless there’s a threat of divestiture, there’s no incentive for Google to comply,” he said.
Rival search engine company DuckDuckGo has asked the court to force Google to license its search results to competitors, who can then create and improve their own products.
Microsoft (MSFT.O), which operates rival search engine Bing, and Apple (AAPL.O), which generates billions of dollars in annual revenue from Google , declined to comment.
