Written by Judy Godoy
The U.S. Justice Department plans to issue a blueprint by December on what Alphabet Inc’s Google must do to restore competition after a judge earlier found the company had an illegal monopoly on the online search market, prosecutors said at a court hearing in Washington on Friday.
The plaintiffs did not say what remedy they would propose, but Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist said it should be comprehensive and take into account how Google plans to integrate artificial intelligence into search.
Since the lawsuit was filed, Google has renamed its Bard AI product to Gemini, Dahlquist said.
“What else are they thinking about? What’s beyond that?” he said during the hearing.
Attorneys general may seek to force Google to spin off some business units, such as its Android mobile operating system, or halt billions in annual payments to smartphone makers and others to ensure its search engine is the default on devices and browsers.
Google attorney John Schmidtlin said at the hearing that the company needs a detailed proposal from prosecutors, and will likely seek information from Microsoft (NASDAQ:) and OpenAI to prepare any counterargument on AI search.
Google said it plans to appeal the judge’s ruling.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said he could hold a hearing in the spring and wants to issue a ruling by August.
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