Google has offered up its own proposal in a recent antitrust case that saw the US Department of Justice argue that Google must sell its Chrome browser. US District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August that Google had acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, with the DOJ then proposing a number [β¦]
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Google; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI
Google on Friday proposed limitations to its search partnerships as a potential remedy to resolve antitrust violations in its search business.
The proposal would allow Google to continue partnering with third-party companies like Apple in revenue-sharing deals that make Google the default search engine on their devices, unlike the Justice Department's proposal. However, Google's proposal would make the deals non-exclusive, the company said in its filing.
"We don't propose these changes lightly," Google said in a blog post about the proposal. "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."
Last month, the Justice Department and a group of states asked Judge Amit Mehta to force Google to sell its Chrome browser to resolve the case. They also asked that Google be stopped from entering default search agreements with Apple and other companies and that Google should open its search engine results to competitors.
Industry experts previously told Business Insider that selling Chrome off would open up the browser market and would likely be cheered on by search rivals and advertisers, though it remains unclear how a possible Chrome spinoff might work.
Both sides will present arguments for their proposals at a hearing scheduled for April. The judge is expected to rule on the final remedies by August.
Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, previously said the company intends to appeal the judge's ruling, potentially delaying a final decision by several years.
Representatives for the Justice Department's antitrust division did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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It's been an eventful year for Apple.
The tech giant launched a brand new hardware product, made its official entrance into generative artificial intelligence, and added a new iPhone generation β all in the span of 12 months.
It's also faced questions about CEO succession, challenges in one of its largest markets, and criticism about being behind in the AI arms race compared to some of the industry's fiercest players. Meantime, it's been under antitrust scrutiny from both US and EU authorities.
"2024 has been a year of notable highs and lows for Apple as it expanded into mixed reality and AI while navigating shifting consumer preferences and market dynamics," Jacob Bourne, tech analyst at Business Insider's sister company EMARKETER, said.
Apple got off to a rocky start this year. Its stock got two analyst downgrades in early January, with bankers citing worries about poor iPhone sales in China. Still, it celebrated wins in the services department of its business and partnered with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to new iPhones. It explored new territory with the Apple Vision Pro and upgraded company staples, including iPads and AirPods.
Here's a look back at Apple's 2024.
Fu Tian/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images
Apple started 2024 with struggles in its important Greater China region β a trend that continued. Analysts called sales of the iPhone 15 in China "lackluster" as competitors like Huawei and Xiaomi stepped up their competition in the local smartphone market.
It showed throughout Apple's earnings in 2024. Although the company beat revenue estimates in its fiscal fourth-quarter, sales in China missed and dropped year over year.
Still, Apple CEO Tim Cook said there are "positive signs" in the region during the fiscal Q4 earnings call on October 31. Cook took frequent trips to China this year β at least three times, as of November β amid fears that Donald Trump's potential tariffs will affect the country that makes a majority of Apple's iPhones, AirPods, Macs, and iPads.
"China's just been a disappointment in '24, full stop," Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said.
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Apple launched its first headset, the Vision Pro, in February. The mixed reality device retails for $3,500, making it one of Apple's priciest products to date.
The headset was met with mixed reactions. Its uses are limited, and it was unclear if the tech was for gamers or professionals. Months after it released, Cook told The Wall Street Journal that the Vision Pro is for "people who want to have tomorrow's technology today."
"At $3,500, it's not a mass-market product," Cook said. "Right now, it's an early-adopter product."
Apple is reportedly slowing down its Vision Pro production and is instead eyeing a more affordable version of the headset.
The US Department of Justice accused Apple of maintaining an illegal monopoly on the smartphone market in an antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ alleged the iPhone maker was involved in "delaying, degrading, or outright blocking" rival technology. Apple denied the allegations.
The suit said the company "repeatedly responded" to competitive threats by "making it harder or more expensive for its users and developers to leave than by making it more attractive for them to stay."
Apple asked a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit in August, saying the government's argument includes speculation. US District Court Judge Julien Xavier Neals will have to decide whether or not the case will go to trial.
Neals' decision could come as early as January, Bloomberg reported.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Apple was fined about $2 billion related to its App Store and was subject to other competition concerns in the region.
Apple; Business Insider
As OpenAI, Google, and others announced updates and demonstrated the power of their new AI assistants, Apple introduced new iPads in May.
The latest iPad Pro models are the first to have OLED display; Cook and Co. unveiled them at Apple's "Let Loose" event. Cook said it was "the biggest day for iPad since its introduction."
Although the launch came as Apple watchers waited for a bigger AI announcement, iPads performed well for Apple in Q3.
Apple
The world was introduced to Apple Intelligence at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Apple's official debut into the AI wars, which have escalated since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022, was the "biggest story" of the year, William Kerwin, a technology analyst at Morningstar, said.
The hype around Apple Intelligence was instant. Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said it would usher in a "golden upgrade cycle" for iPhones. Apple said it'd be a big part of the iOS 18 software update too, though Apple Intelligence is only available on iPhone 15 Pro models or later.
The company made some lofty promises at WWDC, and plans to deliver on them after the initial rollout in October and through 2025, although not all the features touted have launched yet. So far, US iPhone users have gotten access to "Writing Tools," AI-generated emojis, and ChatGPT through Siri. The company had been criticized for its late entry to the AI scene.
"They caught up by partnering and by adding AI to something only Apple can do," Munster said.
Meanwhile, the company is reportedly exploring ways it can bring Apple Intelligence to Chinese iPhone owners. Apple will have to partner with a local company if it wants to deliver AI to its most important international market.
Apple
Apple announced its first iPhone "built from the ground up to deliver Apple Intelligence" at its "Glowtime" event in September.
The company faced slowing iPhone sales in the quarters leading up to the launch; the new AI-enabled iPhone 16 was expected by some to be the boost it needed. It released without Apple Intelligence, though that was made available through a later iOS update. It did come with a new camera control button and some software updates.
The phones start at $999 for the iPhone 16 Pro and $1,199 for the Pro Max model. Although a golden upgrade cycle hasn't happened yet, analysts still have high expectations for the next year of iPhones.
"We believe iPhone 16 has kicked off a multi-year supercycle for Apple as the AI Revolution comes to the consumer," Ives said in an analyst note.
Among the new launches in 2024, Apple also axed some ideas that were said to be in the pipeline.
Bloomberg reported in December that Apple would no longer work on building a subscription service for iPhones. The team working to make iPhone ownership possible through monthly fees and annual upgrades was reassigned to other projects, according to the article.
The tech giant also shut down its buy now, pay later service, Apple Pay Later, in June, instead partnering with Klarna to bring its offering to Apple Pay, The Verge reported.
In April, Apple filed documents outlining that it planned to cut more than 600 employees working on projects related to screens and its electric car. Before that, the company reportedly told 2,000 employees that it would wind down its multi-year efforts to make an electric car.
Still, canceling the Apple Car to reassign talent to its Apple Intelligence efforts was part of a "one-two combo" that helped the company catch up in AI, Munster said.
YinYang/Getty Images
Some companies are opting for a new tactic in slimming down employee numbers β "stealth firing."
Meta let go around two dozen staff in October for using their $25 meal credits to buy other items, including laundry detergent and acne pads, while EY fired many more for "cheating" and taking multiple training courses at once.
The Financial Times, which first reported the EY firings, referred to these instances of being dismissed for minor offenses as "stealth firing."
Joe Galvin, the chief research officer at the executive coaching platform Vistage, told Business Insider that this sneaky sacking is "a "covert behind-the-scenes activity" that "violates the principle of respect for the individual."
A corporation might think: "I'm trying to downsize a little bit without saying I'm downsizing a little bit," Galvin said.
"So you go through this process that does nothing but break trust."
Stealth firing leads from an era of "quiet firing," where companies methodically made employees' roles increasingly uncomfortable and less appealing, such as implementing strict return-to-office mandates.
This trend, along with the quietly agreed-upon severance packages of "silent layoffs," is a tactic to avoid the optics of publicly cutting dozens of staff.
Cynthia Patterson, the founder of the HR consultancy firm PeopleOps.how, who has 20 years of experience in HR across tech, AI, healthcare, and retail industries, told BI that while quietly trimming headcounts in these ways may work in the short term, they can cause serious issues for a workplace.
"Any short-term outcome is offset by the negative cultural impact," Patterson said. "Employees are left second-guessing their own value and stability, creating an environment of anxiety and mistrust."
A lack of trust and stability can lead to low morale, reduced productivity, and a stressed-out workforce.
"This dynamic mirrors the patterns of toxic and/or abusive work cultures, where fear and uncertainty are used β intentionally or not β as tools for behavioral control," Patterson said.
People are also perceptive, and employees who see their colleagues be shown the door for minor indiscretions will only make them wary and dissatisfied.
Patterson told BI companies who push people out in arbitrary ways are mistakenly viewing avoidance as kindness.
"Employee performance management is part of running a business," she said. "And it can't be skipped because it feels uncomfortable or inconvenient to the employer."
Stealth firing, Patterson said, simply exposes a company's inability or unwillingness to have honest, necessary conversations about performance β and "signals to employees that the organization doesn't have integrity."
Galvin told BI that companies willfully harming their reputations in this way may find they are the ones suffering and bleeding talent ifΒ an era of revenge quittingΒ hits in 2025.
"The signs are pointing up toward a really strong 2025 β our community is energized, hiring's going back up again, investments are going up, expectations for profits and revenues are up," he said. "The power shifting."
It's always a smaller world than you think when it comes to work and looking for your next job, Ciara Harrington, the chief people officer of the leadership training platform Skillsoft, told BI.
"It's in the interest of everybody to keep good relationships," she said. "I don't think anybody really wants to leave a company on bad terms."
Sometimes, companies have to let their staff go, and the best thing for everyone is to do so with respect and honesty. That way, while the news isn't what the employees hope for, they still maintain a level of respect for the company.
The alternative is that employees post on public platforms such as LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and job review sites about their negative experiences, such as how they felt undervalued and lied to.
Patterson said these stories could reach future employees, customers, investors, and even employment lawyers, opening up companies to potential legal disputes.
"Strong companies know their employees are human beings and deserve to be treated as such," Patterson said.
Galvin told BI that if there are signs that your company is looking to stealth fire you, it's time to start weighing your options.
Even if your employer isn't planning on firing you, if their communication is poor, and you feel unsafe, it's best to get out anyway.
"In the absence of a story, we create one," Galvin said. "If you sense that's happening to you, you either have the direct conversation with your manager or start looking for your next job."
South Koreaβs antitrust watchdog has fined Kakao Mobility, the ride-hailing unit of Korean tech firm Kakao, $10.5 million (KRW 15.1 billion) for limiting competitorsβ access to its taxi app β lowering the penalty from an initial fine of $50.3 million (KRW 72.4 billion) as the earlier sanction was based on an overestimated calculation of the [β¦]
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The grocery industry's biggest potential alliance is toast.
Albertsons said Wednesday that it is terminating Kroger's attempted $24.6 billion acquisition, a day after a federal judge blocked the deal due to antitrust concerns.
In addition, Albertsons filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery against its rival, saying it failed to exercise "best efforts" to get approval for the deal.
"Rather than fulfill its contractual obligations to ensure that the merger succeeded, Kroger acted in its own financial self-interest, repeatedly providing insufficient divestiture proposals that ignored regulators' concerns," Albertsons' General Counsel and Chief Policy Officer Tom Moriarty said in a statement.
Albertsons is seeking "billions of dollars" in damages and a $600 million termination fee, which it says it is entitled to under its negotiating terms with Kroger.
A Kroger spokesperson called the claims "baseless and without merit."
"Kroger refutes these allegations in the strongest possible terms, especially in light of Albertsons' repeated intentional material breaches and interference throughout the merger process," the spokesperson said. "This is clearly an attempt to deflect responsibility following Kroger's written notification of Albertsons' multiple breaches of the agreement, and to seek payment of the merger's break fee, to which they are not entitled."
Albertsons' Moriarty called Kroger's approach to getting regulatory approval "willfully deficient" and said the suit is intended to "protect the interests of our shareholders, associates, and consumers."
The suit marks a decisive end of the largest proposed supermarket merger in US history, which faced challenges from the Federal Trade Commission and two US court cases.
Following Tuesday's injunction, both companies told BI they were disappointed by the ruling and would explore their options for next steps.
Lawyers for each side previously said the deal would be called off if it were blocked in Washington.
Andrew Ferguson, one of two Republican FTC commissioners appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden, will be the countryβs next FTC chair, incoming president Donald Trump announced Tuesday on social media. The news is being met with relief in some circles. Current FTC Chair Lina Khan was blamed by many in Silicon Valley for a dearth [β¦]
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China's top antimonopoly regulator has launched an investigation into Nvidia, whose shares dropped by 2.2% in premarket trading on Monday following the latest escalation of chip tensions with the US.
The State Administration for Market Regulation said on Monday that it was investigating whether the chipmaker giant violated antimonopoly regulations.
The probe is related to Nvidia's acquisition of Mellanox Technologies, an Israeli chip firm, in 2020. China's competition authority approved the $7 billion takeover in 2020 on the condition that rivals be notified of new products within 90 days of allowing Nvidia access to them.
The US-China chip war has been escalating. Last week, China's commerce ministry said it would halt shipments of key materials needed for chip production to the US. The ministry said the measures were in response to US chip export bans, also announced last week.
Nvidia, which is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, has also faced antitrust scrutiny in the US. The Department of Justice has been examining whether Nvidia might have abused its market dominance to make it difficult for buyers to change suppliers.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider made outside normal working hours.
As Meta faces off with antitrust regulators in the U.S. and Europe, a Β£2.1 billion+ Facebook U.K. class action-style competition lawsuit, which takes Metaβs market dominance as a given, is moving ahead after the social media giant lost a bid to have the litigation thrown out. The suit is seeking damages worth a minimum of [β¦]
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Microsoft is in the crosshairs of a U.K. competition class-action style lawsuit thatβs seeking Β£1 billion (around $1.25 billion at current exchange rates) in damages. It revolves around accusations related to fees the software giant charged businesses and other organizations for licensing Windows Server when they were customers of rival cloud computing platforms. The suit, [β¦]
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Canada's antitrust watchdog is suing Google over its anti-competitive conduct in its adtech business, the country's Competition Bureau said Thursday.
The Competition Bureau, Canada's independent law enforcement agency responsible for regulating anti-competitive conduct, wants the tech giant to sell two of its adtech products and pay a fine that could total up to 3% of its global gross revenue.
The antitrust watchdog said Google is the largest provider of adtech services in Canada and has "abused" its position to maintain market dominance.
"Google's conduct locks market participants into using its own adtech tools, prevents rivals from being able to compete on the merits of their offering, and otherwise distorts the competitive process," the antitrust watchdog said.
This suit is the latest in a series of legal challenges against Google for alleged anti-competitive behavior.
Earlier this month, the Department of Justice urged District Judge Amit Mehta to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser as a remedy in a landmark antitrust case. In August, Judge Mehta found that Google holds an illegal monopoly in its search business.
In September, the Department of Justice and 17 state attorneys general brought an antitrust suit against Google in the Eastern District of Virginia over its alleged digital ad market monopoly.
That same month, Europe's top court also upheld a 2017 decision in another antitrust case against Google, where it was ordered to pay a β¬2.4 billion fine.
Advertising is crucial to Google's business. Google parent Alphabet has reported $220.8 billion in revenue from advertising for the first nine months of the year β 87% of its total revenue during that same time period.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The FTC has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft, according to multiple reports that corroborate earlier reporting by the Financial Times. The agency is said to be looking into whether Microsoft violated antitrust law in multiple segments of its business, including its public cloud, AI, and cybersecurity product lines. Of particular interest to the FTC [β¦]
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The European Unionβs outgoing competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, made a name for herself with headline-grabbing enforcements against Big Tech. But in a New York Times exit interview, as she approaches the end of her term, she sounds regretful at not having gone faster and harder against the likes of Apple and Google. She summarized her [β¦]
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Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Apple used to hate the ad business. Now, it looks like it's taking it more seriously. So, how big could Apple's ad business get?
That's a question lots of people in the advertising world have been wondering about. And that includes Google. And now, thanks to documents unearthed during Google's antitrust court case, we can see how Google has been thinking about Apple's potential as it edges into an industry Google has dominated for decades.
Titled "Project Black Walnut," the 2022 report appears to have been assembled by Google strategists to try to imagine what kind of ad business Apple might build out one day.
Apple's current ad business is mostly confined to selling ads on its App Store search-results page. But the report's authors speculate that Apple could eventually start selling ads that run on other people's apps and at some point on the web via its Safari browser. It might eventually become a $30 billion business, they guesstimate.
You can see the full document here:
But while the document's authors were trying to imagine how big Apple's ad business could get, they also wondered whether Apple would really want to fully embrace it. Right now, most of the money Apple says it gets from "ads" is really money it gets from Google, which pays Apple upward of $20 billion a year to make Google's search engine the default on Apple's phones.
"We believe Apple is unlikely to give up search TAC [the annual payments Apple gets from Google] for a $10-$20b Spotlight Search [Apple's own search engine] opportunity, unless regulation or Google disrupts the status quo," the report says at one point.
Then again, one of the commenters on the document points out, those annual payments β which could account for 15% or more of Apple's annual profits β are at risk "by regulation or Google's choice."
Which may very well be the case. In August, Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google had an illegal monopoly in search, and those Google/Apple payments are at the heart of the case. The US government has since asked Mehta to ban those payments, along with other proposed remedies, like forcing Google to sell off its Chrome browser.
A Google rep declined to comment on the document. Apple hasn't replied to a request for comment. The file became part of the public record in August. Jason Kint, the CEO of Digital Content Next, a trade group representing online publishers, brought the document to my attention after I wrote about the possibility that Apple could lose Google Search payments.
The rest of "Project Black Walnut" is useful for anyone trying to imagine what an Apple ad business could look like if Apple decided to build one. While there are a few insights that seem proprietary to Google βΒ the authors say that Apple has been hiring people with ad backgrounds, including "outreach to Googlers" β most of the data points would be available to anyone outside Google, like the fact that Apple has been moving into sports programming.
Back when Google assembled the document, this looked more like a speculative road map. But now that $20 billion a year could disappear from Apple's revenue line, it looks more realistic.
Correction: November 26, 2024 β Judge Amit P. Mehta in August ruled that Google had an illegal monopoly in search, not Apple.
After the European Union opened a competition investigation into Corning earlier this month, citing concerns over alleged exclusive dealing, the Gorilla Glass maker has offered a raft of changes to its contract clauses aimed at settling the probe. The U.S. company is a supplier to major electronics brands, including Appleβs iPhone, and the changes could [β¦]
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An inquiry group set up by the U.K.βs antitrust authority has provisionally found that Appleβs policies are βholding back innovation in the browsers we use to access the web on mobile phones.β While the report focuses substantively on Apple, it also highlighted a revenue-sharing agreement with Google, noting that the duo βearn significant revenueβ when [β¦]
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The online search business is not about technology. It's about distribution.
The US Department of Justice made that clear Wednesday when it proposed fixes for a judge's earth-shaking ruling that Google is an illegal monopolist.
The DOJ's remedies cut to the heart of how Google distributes its search engine and how that broad reach is key to the company's dominance of this crucial and lucrative market.
The government's suggestion that Google be forced to sell Chrome initially grabbed the headlines. But, on Thursday, the potential crackdown on all distribution deals caught investors' attention.
The US government's lawyers said Google should be banned from offering "anything of value for any form" of search distribution. That especially includes Apple, but also covers any other partner or company, with limited exceptions, according to the DOJ's executive summary.
ISI Evercore internet analyst Mark Mahaney called this distribution crackdown "draconian" and said investors were surprised by the severity of the proposals. Google shares dropped 5% on Thursday.
The reason for this concern is that the online search business is not really about the quality of the technology. The edge comes from massive distribution and the huge volume of user queries that come with such a broad reach.
When people use Google to search on the web, the company monitors what results they click on. It feeds these responses back into its search engine, and the product gets constantly better. For instance, if most people click on the third result for a particular query, Google's search engine will likely adjust and rank that result higher in the future.
This self-reinforcing system is very hard to compete against. This is how the DOJ put it on Wednesday:
"Search engines rely on user data to improve search quality β an outcome that drives more users to a search engine. Users attract advertisers, and advertising dollars fund general search engines, creating a perpetual feedback loop that further entrenches Google."
One of the few ways to compete is to get more distribution than Google and pull in the extra queries and click-behavior data.
For many years, Google has paid to lock down most major sources of distribution. The most famous deal is with Apple. Google pays the iPhone maker about $20 billion a year to be the default search engine on Apple's mobile devices.
If the search business was actually about the quality of Google's technology, why does it have to pay Apple $20 billion a year? That question is at the heart of the DOJ's case, and Google has never been able to answer it properly. Because it keeps paying Apple.
If Google search technology is so great, the company shouldn't have to pay for distribution. People would just flock to its search engine all by themselves.
We could soon see a real-world test of this.
If the judge in this case agrees with the DOJ, then these payments will end β not just with Apple, but with any other third-party source of online distribution for Google's search engine.
This may have freaked investors out on Thursday. They know that the search business is mainly about distribution, and Google may not be able to do this now.
In a worst-case scenario, Google could lose a material slice of the US search market, according to Mahaney.
"We believe Google's default search placements via contractual agreements represent 50%+ of Google's US search queries," he estimated on Thursday.
If half of Google's US search queries go away, that could threaten the self-reinforcing cycle of user click data improving its results.
Suddenly, Google Search may not be so uncatchable.
Google's top lawyer, Kent Walker, said the DOJ's proposals would "break" the company's search engine and "deliberately hobble people's ability to access" the service.
Google gets to propose its own remedies on December 20.
Google; Getty Images; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI
A possible breakup of Google just became slightly more likely.
The Justice Department on Wednesday asked the judge in its antitrust case against Google to force the company to sell its Chrome browser.
That follows Judge Mehta's ruling in August that Google maintains an illegal monopoly in search and advertising markets. Google will get to suggest its own remedies, likely in December, and the judge is expected to rule next year.
If Google ends up having to sell or spin off Chrome, it would be a blow to the company. Meanwhile, advertisers and search rivals would likely cheer the news, according to industry experts.
Separating Chrome from Google and preventing default search placement deals "would put Google Search into competition with other paths for advertisers to reach potential customers," said John Kwoka, a professor of economics at Northeastern University. "Advertisers would find competitors for their business, rather than needing to pay a dominant search engine."
Chrome is a hugely popular Google product that the company leans on to grow and maintain its search advertising empire. Chrome holds 61% of the US browser market share, according to StatCounter, while 20% of general search queries come through user-downloaded Chrome browsers, according to the August ruling from Judge Mehta.
Chrome is a valuable distribution mechanism for Google Search, and a portal into the searching habits of billions of users.
When you open Chrome and type something into the search bar at the top, these words are automatically transformed into a Google Search. On other browsers and non-Google devices, that's not necessarily the case. With Windows devices, for instance, the main browser defaults to Microsoft's Bing search engine. And when there's an option for users, Google pays partners billions of dollars to set its search engine as the default.
Chrome avoids all these complications and costs because Google controls it and sets its own search engine as the default for free.
Once this important distribution tool is in place, Google collects mountains of user data from the browser, and from searches within the browser. This information goes into creating higher-value targeted advertising.
There's an equally powerful benefit of Chrome: When people use it to search on the web, Google monitors what results they click on. It feeds these responses back into its Search engine and the product gets constantly better. For instance, if most people click on the third result, Google's Search engine will likely adjust and rank that result higher in the future.
This self-reinforcing system β supported by Chrome β is very hard to compete against. One of the few ways to compete is to get more distribution than Google. If Chrome were an independent product, rival search engines might be able to get a piece of this distribution magic.
In 2011, venture capitalist Bill Gurley called Chrome and Android "very expensive and very aggressive 'moats,' funded by the height and magnitude of Google's castle."
Google has also tapped Chrome as a way to reach users with new AI products, including Lens, its image-recognition search feature, as it tries to fend off emerging rivals such as OpenAI.
Many have tried to take on Google in the browser market, and many have failed. Take Neeva, a privacy-focused search engine launched by Google's former ads boss Sridhar Ramaswamy and other ex-Googlers.
Not only did the startup have to develop a search engine from the ground up, it also had to build its own web browser to compete with Chrome because this is such a major source of distribution in the search business.
Neeva lasted four years before closing its doors.
"People forget that Google's success was not a result of only having a better product," Ramaswamy once told The Verge. "There were an incredible number of shrewd distribution decisions made to make that happen."
Teiffyon Parry, chief strategy officer of the adtech company Equativ, said that losing 3 billion monthly Chrome users would be "no small blow" to Google.
However, Google has many other ways of reaching users and scooping up data, including Gmail, YouTube, a host of physical devices, and the Play Store. The company also has a standalone app that functions as a web browser and has the potential to effectively replace Chrome.
"Chrome has served Google exceptionally well, but its loss would be a manageable inconvenience," said Parry.
Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity and privacy consultant, is concerned about what might happen to the broader web if Chrome is sold off.
"Chrome is adopting web innovations really fast," he said, giving Chrome's security features as an example of how Google has innovated.
Without Google's financial support, Chrome might struggle on its own, and it's possible that progress on the web slows, weakening the ecosystem, he explained.
"The worst case scenario is deterioration of security and privacy of billions of users, and the rise of cybercrime on unimaginable levels," he warned.
One of the biggest questions is how a Chrome spinoff might work. A Bloomberg analysis valued Chrome at $15 billion to $20 billion if it were to be sold or spun off. Would antitrust regulators allow a major rival to buy it?
It's "unlikely" that Meta would be allowed to acquire it, tech blogger Ben Thompson wrote on Wednesday. That would leave someone like OpenAI as a potential buyer, he said, adding that the "distribution Chrome brings would certainly be welcome, and perhaps Chrome could help bootstrap OpenAI's inevitable advertising business."
And if Google has to sell Chrome, will it also be banned from making distribution deals with whoever buys the browser?
"The only way [a spun-off Chrome] could make money is through an integrated search deal," said tech commentator John Gruber on a recent podcast.
There may be ways around it. Earlier this year, a group of researchers published a paper analyzing Google Chrome's role in the search market and within Google's business (it should be noted one of the authors works at rival DuckDuckGo).
"The precedent set by Mozilla's financial dependence on Google highlights potential challenges for Chrome in maintaining its operations without similar support," the researchers said, nodding to the fact Google pays Firefox a lot of money to be its default search engine, despite Firefox's dwindling user numbers.
The researchers proposed one way to divest Chrome without letting it die is to let Google still financially support it if necessary but block Google from exclusive contracts that make Google Search the default. They also suggested web browsers could be reclassified as public utilities.
"Under such a classification, Chrome's agreements and decisions would be subject to heightened scrutiny, particularly to safeguard consumer welfare and prevent exclusionary practices," they wrote.
Google plans to appeal any ruling, potentially delaying any final decision by several years. In a statement earlier this week, Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google's vice president of regulatory affairs, said the DOJ was pushing "a radical agenda that goes far behind the legal issues in this case."
"The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed," she added.
Are you a current or former Google employee? Got more insight to share? You can reach the reporter Hugh Langley via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 628-228-1836) or email ([email protected]).
