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DOJ proposals may include breaking up Google

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Google plans to appeal, citing robust competition

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Rivals like Yelp and DuckDuckGo propose ways to boost

competition

By Jody Godoy

NEW YORK, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of

Justice is expected to outline on Tuesday what kind of actions

Alphabet's Google could be ordered to take to restore

competition in online search, potentially including a breakup of

the Big Tech company.

After a federal court in August ruled Google controls an

illegal monopoly in online search, smaller rivals want the court

to force Google to spin off its Chrome browser, or at least

prohibit it from continuing to pay billions of dollars to make

its search engine the default on devices such as Apple's ( AAPL ) iPhone.

The broad DOJ proposals are the next step in a landmark case

that has the potential to reshape how Americans find information

on the internet after a judge found Google, which processes 90%

of U.S. internet searches, had built an illegal monopoly.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling in Washington was a

major win for antitrust enforcers who have brought an ambitious

set of cases against Big Tech companies over the past four

years.

Google has said it plans to appeal, and that its search

engine has won users through its quality. Google said it faces

robust competition from Amazon ( AMZN ) and other sites where

users go directly to search for goods or services, and that

users can choose other search engines as their default.

Some companies that compete with Google have called for a

breakup.

Reviews site Yelp, which sued Google over search in

August, says spinning off Google's Chrome browser and AI

services should be on the table. Yelp also wants Google to be

prohibited from giving preference to its own local business

pages, which compete with Yelp, in search results.

Adam Epstein, president and co-CEO of search ad company

adMarketplace, said the threat of ordering Google to sell off

parts of its business could be used as a way to enforce less

drastic remedies.

"Google is not going to have the incentive to comply unless

they have the Damocles' sword of divestiture hanging above

them," he said.

Rival search engine company DuckDuckGo has called for the

court to require Google to license its search results to

competitors who could then build and improve their own products.

Microsoft ( MSFT ), which operates rival search engine Bing, and

Apple ( AAPL ), which receives billions of dollars annually from

Google, declined to comment.