The plaintiffs in an antitrust lawsuit against Google filed a revised proposed final judgment for the judge in the case to consider. The proposal comes after a previous ruling where the court determined that Google broke antitrust laws by illegally maintaining its monopoly.
The legal filing by the plaintiffs, the United States Department Of Justice and State Attorneys General, argue that Google has maintained monopolies in search services and text advertising through anticompetitive practices.
The filing proposes four ways to loosen Google’s monopolistic hold on search and advertising.
- Requiring Google to separate Chrome from its business—this could mean selling it or spinning it off into an independent company.
- Limiting Google’s payments to companies like Apple for making Google the default search engine, reducing its ability to secure exclusive deals.
- Stopping Google from favoring its own products over competitors in search results and other services, ensuring a more level playing field.
- Increasing transparency in Google’s advertising and data practices so competitors have fairer access to key information.
The proposal asks that Google be subjected to continuous oversight through mandatory reporting to ensure transparency in Google’s advertising and data practices:
“Google must provide to the Technical Committee and Plaintiffs a monthly report outlining any changes to its search text ads auction and its public disclosure of those changes.”
It also suggests ongoing enforcement to guarantee that Google doesn’t impose new restrictions that undermine transparency requirements:
“Google must not limit the ability of advertisers to export in real time (by downloading through an interface or API access) data or information relating to their entire portfolio of ads or advertising campaigns bid on, placed through, or purchased through Google.”
The goal of the above section is to increase transparency in Google’s advertising system and make it easier for advertisers to analyze their ad performance, greater transparency.
Real-time access ensures advertisers can make immediate adjustments to their campaigns instead of waiting for delayed reports and it assures that advertisers aren’t locked into the Google advertising system by holding them hostage to their historical data.
The legal filing requires government-imposed restrictions and changes to Google’s advertising business practices. It proposes remedies for how Google should be regulated or restructured following the court’s earlier ruling that Google engaged in monopolistic practices. However, this is not the final judgment and the court must still decide whether to adopt, modify, or reject these proposed remedies.
