In a legal filing, Google said a DOJ proposal to break up the company was too extreme, and it offered alternatives to address its Search monopoly abuse.

"Consumers and advertisers have benefited for decades from extraordinary innovations and product improvements to Google's search engine and search advertising auction technologies," the Google filing notes. "[And] remarkable artificial intelligence innovations are rapidly changing how people interact with many online products and services, including search engines."

Google lost its historic Search antitrust case in August, with U.S. district court judge Amit Mehta finding its Search monopoly to be illegal because of anticompetitive agreements with companies like Apple and Mozilla. The Judge later said he would take as long as a year to decide on how best to punish Google for its crimes. And he asked the plaintiffs in the case-the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 17 U.S. states-and Google, to issue remedy proposals for him to consider. Those proposals should consider the growing impact of AI to ensure that Google doesn't find a new way to abuse its Search monopoly.

The DOJ and states filed their proposals in late November. The most noteworthy recommendations include forcing Google to divest itself of the Chrome web browser and possibly the Android mobile OS, and to end its illegal agreements with Apple and Mozilla.

Google's recommendations are predictably tamer, and they don't address every DOJ proposal. Google recommends the following.

Google can continue to pay partners to be the default search engine in web browsers and on mobile platforms. What could change is that these deals are not exclusive: These companies could still partner with others, and be paid for similar arrangements. "The Court did not find that Google's payment for non-exclusive distribution or promotion of Google Search would have been anticompetitive or otherwise unlawful," Google's filing says. (Emphasis mine.) This would allow Google to "compete on merits."

Google could decouple Play Store, Chrome, Apps, and Search licensing. Today, when hardware makers license Android, they are required to also license Google Search if they bundle the Play Store and a default set of Google apps on the devices. Google proposes a small change to that licensing, or what it calls "additional licensing flexibility." In short, companies could license the Play Store and Google's bundled apps, Search, and/or Chrome separately. Google would still be able to compete with other search engines to be the default on devices.

Google would not require partners to bundle Gemini. To address growing concerns about generative AI and potential further abuses, Google would not require those who license Android or its now-optional other products and services to also bundle its Gemini "assistant chatbot." And it would not prevent partners from bundling competing AI assistive chatbots, including those that might be positioned as search alternatives.

Google would be legally required to conform to these requirements for 3 years. The DOJ and the states recommended a period of 10 years.

"Extreme remedies are discouraged," Google explains. "We don't propose these changes lightly. They would come at a cost to our partners by regulating how they must go about picking the best search engine for their customers. And they would impose burdensome restrictions and oversight over contracts that have reduced prices for devices and supported innovation in rival browsers, both of which have been good for consumers. But we believe that they fully address the Court's findings, and do so without putting Americans' privacy and security at risk or harming America's global technology leadership."