US plan to break up Google’s search dominance threatens profit engine, AI growth

(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice’s proposed remedies to break up Google’s search dominance could weaken its main profit engine and stall its advances in artificial intelligence, even though a final outcome may be years away, analysts said.

The DOJ said on Tuesday it may ask a judge to force Google to divest parts of its business such as its Chrome browser and Android operating system, that the Alphabet-owned company (GOOGL.O) used to maintain an illegal monopoly in online search.

It is only one of the many potential fixes prosecutors are considering.

Barring Google from collecting sensitive user data, requiring it to make search results and indexes available to rivals, letting websites opt out of their content being used to train AI products and making Google report to a “court-appointed technical committee” are also on the table.

The remedies strike at the heart of the internet empire that has made Google synonymous with search and can reduce its revenue while giving its rivals more room to grow.