Judge Rules Against Breaking Up Chrome or Android in Google Antitrust Battle

A federal antitrust ruling has handed Google a major relief while also setting new boundaries for its future dominance. After years of investigations and courtroom battles, U.S.

District Court Judge Amit Mehta has decided that forcing Alphabet to sell off Chrome or Android would be excessive. Instead, the court has chosen a middle path: limiting exclusivity deals, imposing data-sharing obligations, and keeping an eye on how the tech giant wields its influence in both search and the rapidly growing AI sector.

The Department of Justice had been pushing for extreme measures. At one point, it floated the idea of breaking Google apart by forcing the sale of Chrome, even suggesting potential buyers like Yahoo, OpenAI, and Perplexity AI. Perplexity went so far as to put forward a $34.5 billion bid for Chrome in August 2025, a number that raised eyebrows considering Perplexity itself is valued at around $18 billion. The government’s argument was that only structural remedies – essentially amputating pieces of Google – could genuinely restore competition in search and advertising markets. But Judge Mehta ultimately labeled such demands an “overreach.”

His decision doesn’t let Google entirely off the hook. The company has been found guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly by locking in default search positions on smartphones and browsers through massive payments to partners, most famously Apple. At its peak, that arrangement reportedly costs Google about $20 billion annually to remain Safari’s default search engine. Now, such deals can continue but without exclusivity, which could drive down the cost and open doors for competing engines like Bing, DuckDuckGo, or even emerging AI-driven search platforms.

Alphabet had argued fiercely against divesting Chrome, claiming that such a move would fracture its security ecosystem and leave users exposed. Chrome isn’t just another browser; it’s tied deeply into Google’s identity, linking Android devices, Gmail, Docs, YouTube, and a wide range of AI-enhanced features. The court agreed, noting that ripping Chrome out of Google could weaken privacy safeguards and destabilize the browser market itself.

At the same time, Judge Mehta emphasized that the emergence of generative AI has altered the competitive landscape. Chatbots and conversational search tools are no longer science projects – they’re credible rivals. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity are already reshaping how people access information, meaning Google’s dominance in traditional search cannot automatically spill over into this new era. To prevent that, the remedies include requiring Google to share certain anonymized datasets with rivals, ensuring that startups have a fighting chance at training competitive AI systems.

Reactions have been polarized. Critics say the judge let Google off easy, pointing out that the company still controls Android, the operating system on over 80% of the world’s smartphones, and Chrome, the leading browser. To them, avoiding divestiture is proof that regulators lack the will to truly dismantle monopolies. Others argue that breaking apart products like Chrome or Android would create chaos without necessarily giving consumers better options. After all, users have shown a consistent preference: even when Microsoft pushes Edge, people download Chrome anyway. The problem, skeptics say, is not defaults but entrenched user behavior.

The financial backdrop makes the ruling even more significant. Chrome’s estimated enterprise value ranges from $20 billion to $50 billion, making Perplexity’s offer bold but unrealistic. Meanwhile, Alphabet is still not in the clear – it faces a separate remedy trial over its ad tech empire and continues to battle the fallout of the Epic vs. Google case, where a jury concluded in 2023 that the company monopolized Android app distribution and billing systems.

For now, Google has room to breathe. It can keep paying for distribution, keep tying its services together, and keep evolving its AI initiatives. But it can no longer do so in secretive, exclusionary ways. The message from the court is clear: the old game of locking rivals out is over, even if the monopoly itself remains largely intact. The real test will be whether competitors, given slightly more room to maneuver, can actually challenge Google’s dominance in an era where AI is rewriting the rules of search.