US ANTITRUUST lawyers are asking a judge to force the sale of Google’s Chrome browser to limit the company’s market influence, which would undermine the internet giant.

On Wednesday, November 20, the US Department of Justice submitted its recommendation for dissolution to US District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who is expected to impose measures next year to combat Google’s monopolistic power in search. online.

A hard blow for Google?

“It would be a huge gut punch for Google,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Google offers free search, making money from targeting ads and features that drive online commerce.

Beth Egan, an advertising professor at Syracuse University, said: “It would significantly change (Google’s) business model.” »

Selling Chrome would also deprive Google of a rich source of information used to train its algorithms and promote its other services like Maps.

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Launched in 2008, Chrome dominates the browser market, eclipsing its rivals Edge and Safari, developed by Microsoft and Apple respectively.

Egan believed Google would find a way to recover if it was forced to sell Chrome. “I don’t think giving up the browser is going to kill Google as a company,” Egan said.

She noted that it could be its users who end up suffering, given the arguments Google makes in blog posts on the subject.

What is Chrome worth?

A Bloomberg analyst estimates that Chrome, used by more than three billion people worldwide, would sell for at least $15 billion.

But given the lack of precedent, it’s difficult to predict how much Chrome would fetch in the market.

A Chinese investment group bought an internet browser from Norway’s Opera Software ASA for $600 million in 2016, but it then claimed only 350 million users.

Who could buy it?

There are very few potential buyers for Chrome, according to Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, senior analyst at Emarketer.

“It’s likely that any company with enough resources to afford Chrome is already under the scrutiny of antitrust authorities,” Mitchell-Wolf said. “If I had to speculate, I would tend to turn to American players in artificial intelligence.”

While OpenAI’s takeover of Chrome would certainly raise antitrust concerns, the U.S. government could see it as a way for the country to prioritize innovation on the global stage.

Elon Musk’s AI startup could eventually be a competitor to Chrome, funded by his wealth and having secured the deal thanks to his close working relationship with new President Donald Trump.

Win for rivals?

Analysts agree that people will continue to use Chrome regardless of who owns it, as long as the quality doesn’t drop.

“This assumes that Chrome retains its most popular features and continues to innovate,” said analyst Mitchell-Wolf. “Search behaviors are driven by convenience first, trust and experience second.”

The Justice Department’s argument that people use Chrome because it is a default search engine on devices is beside the point, the analyst added.

The Trump factor

Many doubt that Judge Mehta will adopt all the solutions proposed by the Justice Department in this case.

Angelo Zino, analyst at research firm CFRA, called these measures “extreme and unlikely to be imposed by a court.”

The new Trump administration also “remains a wild card” in whether justice officials will revisit the idea of ​​breaking up Google.

Trump indicated in October that he opposed breaking up Google, saying such a move would run counter to U.S. international interests.

“China is afraid of Google” and a split would hurt the company, Trump reasoned at the time. Meanwhile, Trump also accused Google of being unfair to conservatives. AFP