Google and the Department of Justice (DOJ) presented their closing arguments following a three-week hearing to determine the proper remedies, after the tech giant was found to have improperly maintained its search monopoly through a series of exclusive agreements.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta peppered both sides with questions over eight hours Friday, focusing heavily on what AI means for Google and the search market.
The DOJ has argued that Google's dominance over search gives it a leg up in the AI race. It has pushed for more forward-looking remedies, including forcing the company to sell its Chrome browser.
Google has contested this assertion, underscoring the competition it faces in the AI space from the likes of ChatGPT, Grok and DeepSeek.
It has suggested a much more limited set of remedies that would bar the company from entering into the exclusive agreements the court deemed anticompetitive.
Mehta appeared skeptical of Google's proposed remedies, noting that they "could have all closed up shop" if he simply needed to issue an injunction blocking the company's exclusive agreements with device manufacturers and browsers.
However, the judge didn't seem entirely convinced by the DOJ's wide-reaching proposal either, pushing the government to explain how AI fits into the search case.
David Dahlquist, the government's lead attorney, dismissed Google's proposal Friday as "milquetoast remedies that it knows will maintain the status quo."
He argued the remedies can go beyond the confines of the search market identified in the case to prevent Google from taking advantage of its existing market power, underscoring the way generative AI could drive more users to its search engine.
"We do not have to have complete blinders as to what's going on in the rest of the world and we should not," Dahlquist said.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
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