FTC backs DOJ plan to force Google to share search data with competitors in landmark antitrust case
The Federal Trade Commission came out in favor of the Department of Justice's proposal to force Google to share its search data with its competitors on Friday.
"Because of Google’s monopoly power in general search services and general search text ads, Google has been insulated from the pressures to compete for users on the basis of its privacy policies and protections," the FTC said in an amicus brief.
The DOJ is trying to break up Google, a $1.8 trillion company, and force it to sell its Chrome web browser, share years of its consumer data with competitors, and to cease paying billions of dollars to companies like Apple and Samsung for Google to be the default programs on their smartphones.
Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google was a monopoly in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act in August 2024. The DOJ may even begin to examine Google’s activities in the AI space to prevent future monopolistic practices.
Mehta is now holding remedies hearings to determine what actions need to be taken by the tech giant to ensure competition in the market.
Google has staunchly opposed the DOJ’s proposed remedies, with CEO Sundar Pichai testifying in April that the combination of all the remedies would make investing in research and development at the same levels it has in the past "unviable." Google has instead proposed that its contracts with smartphone manufacturers should be renewed yearly and be non-exclusive.
Google’s Vice President of Engineering Elizabeth Reid testified May 6, that the DOJ’s call for Google to share user data with its competitors would "deeply undermine user trust," and could lead to malign actors reverse engineering Google’s search systems and injecting Google’s search results with spam and misinformation. She also said Google would be forced to devote 20% of its Search workforce, or up to 2,000 employees, to ensure compliance with the DOJ's remedies.
"Once it’s turned over to a qualified competitor, there’s no further protections we can give… If suddenly they’re worried that data might go somewhere else … maybe they decide to not use Google altogether, [or] maybe they decide they’re not going to search for certain categories," she said.
When asked for comment, a Google representative referred Fox News Digital to blog posts the company posted in which they detail how the proposed remedies would harm consumers.
"DOJ’s proposal would force Google to share your most sensitive and private search queries with companies you may never have heard of, jeopardizing your privacy and security. Your private information would be exposed, without your permission, to companies that lack Google’s world-class security protections, where it could be exploited by bad actors," Google said.
However, the FTC pointed to the DOJ’s call to establish a "Technical Committee" comprised of "experts in some combination of software engineering, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, economics, and behavioral science" as a sufficient mechanism to protect Google users’ privacy.
The commission also referred to Google’s past security lapses as a justification for the Technical Committee (TC), and as proof that their security isn’t superior to their competitors.
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"Google’s past lapses and failures to protect its users’ privacy demonstrate both that independent TC oversight of Google’s privacy obligations is important and that Google should not be uncritically presumed to have better privacy and data security practices than Qualified Competitors that would receive User-side Data," the FTC wrote.