(WHTM) — Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday announced he is joining a bipartisan coalition of 38 state Attorneys General and the U.S. Justice Department in proposing a final package of resolutions to end Google's monopoly over internet search engines.
The resolutions package concerns Google’s prevalence as the default search engine on Android and Apple devices. If approved, the coalition says the proposal would prohibit Google from paying companies to maintain their presence on those Android and Apple devices. Sunday says the proposal will restore competition to the benefit of consumers nationwide.
The revised Final Judgement resembles a similar proposal to what the states and the Justice Department offered in November in an initial filing with the same federal judge who ruled in a landmark decision that Google maintained a monopoly in online searches last year.
"To ‘Google’ is used synonymously with searching for something online, and this coalition strongly believes that is due to monopolistic practices that have gone on for far too long," Attorney General Sunday said. "Monopolies are bad for consumers, and in this case, the current search engine configuration allows Google to dictate search results, instead of the consumer controlling what they see. We hope this proposal leads to a new standard of diverse search options for consumers who deserve a competitive market."
The package proposes banning all search-related payments from Google to distribution partners, including Apple and Android. The ban would also require Google to divest Chrome and possibly Android if the initial solutions are less effective than anticipated or if Google does not comply with the court order.
The proposal would further entitle the coalition to preliminarily review Google’s future financial interests in online search and generative AI competitors for a limited period to ensure Google will not use the same monopolistic playbook with new technologies.
The order would also deny Google of its continuing exclusive control of ill-gotten gains by requiring the company to share targeted portions of its search index, user, and ads data with its competitors for a limited time.
The coalition says the proposal takes a more refined approach to sharing these types of data while accounting for important privacy considerations and protecting national security.
A hearing on the proposed remedies is scheduled to begin on April 21 and conclude by May 9, per the coalition.