Google can keep Chrome and Android, court rules

In the long-running saga, Google appears to have avoided one of the most significant possible outcomes of its US antitrust case. A federal court ruled that the company would not be forced to break up key parts of its business, which included avoiding the sale of both Chrome and Android.

According to the ruling from the US District Court for the District of Columbia, “Google will not be required to divest Chrome; nor will the court include a contingent divestiture of the Android operating system in the final judgment.” The court also confirmed that “Google will not have to present users with choice screens on its products or encourage its Android distribution partners to do the same.”

This is the first major remedy decision since Judge Amit P. Mehta, who presided over today’s hearing, ruled last year that Google had violated antitrust laws by maintaining an illegal monopoly in search. Regulators had proposed drastic measures at the time, including breaking up Google’s business and forcing it to share data with rivals. Those have now been rejected.

Instead, the court focused on Google’s deals that made its services the default. The company is now barred from contracts that require OEMs to preload the Play Store or other Google apps in exchange for Search, Chrome, Assistant, or the Gemini app. It’s also blocked from making exclusive distribution agreements that tie those apps together.

Still, Google has avoided a blanket ban on payments to partners. The judgment allows the company to continue paying OEMs or offering incentives for preloading Search, Chrome, or Gemini, with the court noting that cutting off such deals could cause “crippling” harm to hardware makers and consumers.

As the most significant antitrust case against Big Tech in decades, the outcome is seen as a test for how regulators can check tech giants’ power. Google will be delighted to have kept its core products intact, but its ability to cement them as defaults has narrowed.