Google got some disappointing news at a status conference Tuesday, where US District Judge Amit Mehta suggested that Google's AI products may be restricted as an appropriate remedy following the government's win in the search monopoly trial.

According to Law360, Mehta said that "the recent emergence of AI products that are intended to mimic the functionality of search engines" is rapidly shifting the search market. Because the judge is now weighing preventive measures to combat Google's anticompetitive behavior, the judge wants to hear much more about how each side views AI's role in Google's search empire during the remedies stage of litigation than he did during the search trial.

"AI and the integration of AI is only going to play a much larger role, it seems to me, in the remedy phase than it did in the liability phase," Mehta said. "Is that because of the remedies being requested? Perhaps. But is it also potentially because the market that we have all been discussing has shifted?"

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Welcome to Google's nightmare.

Late yesterday, the US Department of Justice filed its proposed final judgment, officially recommending a broad range of remedies to end Google's search monopoly.

Predictably, Google is not happy with the DOJ's plan, which requires the company to sell its Chrome browser. It also retains the option of forcing Google to divest Android if competition doesn't increase from behavioral remedies, including bans on exclusive default deals with other browsers and device makers. Additionally, Google is prohibited from building any new browsers and must fund an education campaign that shows people how to switch search engines and potentially even pays people to switch. Google may also be restricted from using its data scale advantage to benefit its AI products.

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Preferred by 61 percent of Internet users, Google's Chrome browser plays too big a role in maintaining the tech giant's search monopoly, the US Department of Justice has reportedly decided.

On Monday, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that top antitrust officials are planning to ask the court on Wednesday to order Google to sell off Chrome. In addition to banning Google's exclusive default deals, cutting off Google's control of the world's most popular browser may be necessary, sources suggested, to level the playing field for rivals.

Additionally, the DOJ intends to ask for a range of other remedies, Bloomberg reported, all of them discussed in a court filing last month. These include imposing data licensing requirements and requiring more transparency for advertisers on where their ads appear, as well as requiring "measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system," sources said. Those measures will likely stop Google from hoarding user data for both search results and AI products, with the DOJ seemingly paving the way for more users to opt their content out of AI training.

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