Updated April 23, 2025 at 13:00 PM ET
The Justice Department is pushing to break up Google in a way that could reshape the internet.
A judge ruled last week that Google built "monopoly power" through its online advertising business, which allowed it to charge other companies inflated prices for ads and take larger cuts of each ad sale, KQED reports. And last year, another federal judge ruled that Google acted illegally to maintain its monopoly over the search engine market.
The Justice Department is suggesting drastic steps that would dismantle Google's dominance in a series of hearings over the search engine case in the coming weeks. The DOJ is asking a judge to force Google to sell Chrome, its web browser, and ban it from making agreements with companies like Apple to make Chrome a default browser.
Google said in an April 20 blog post that it will appeal the court's decision and said the DOJ's proposals would harm consumers and the economy.
The point of these hearings is to guarantee that there is a free and fair internet for smaller and new competitors, Rohit Chopra, former commissioner of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and former head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told Morning Edition.
Chopra spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep about how and why Google was found to have monopolized its ad market and what the future could hold for the tech giant.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Steve Inskeep: I just want to ask about Google. It's a ubiquitous fact of life. I mean, I use it several times per day without even thinking, and I guess I probably see a lot of Google-placed ads without even thinking that Google was the source. So what does it even mean that they were monopolizing the ad market?
Rohit Chopra: All of us want to make sure that there is a free and fair internet that is open for new competitors. But what the court has found is that Google engaged in a scheme to choke off competition when it comes to online ads. Now, so many local publications, small content creators – they depend on the revenue from ads, and all sorts of businesses spend money to advertise online. And Google took more than its fair share on both sides of that equation.
Inskeep: I know that the technical parts of this can get complicated. But essentially, we're thinking about, for example, a local newspaper that might once have sold its own ads, but instead, someone is finding their article through Google, and they end up seeing a Google ad. Is that it?
Chopra: That's right. In many cases, websites across the internet include technology that integrates Google's advertising protocols. And that means that Google is the one serving up those ads through those websites, even though it is not a Google property. And Google took control of key ad exchanges. This is where advertisers figure out how much they're going to pay. And all of this amounted to a big conflict of interest that really hurt people across the entire economy.
Inskeep: I want to make sure that I understand the impact to society here. Obviously, there are some people who are doing business who felt they were disadvantaged, but we just talked about local publications like a local newspaper. There is an incredible dearth of local news coverage in this country at this point. Does it seem to you that Google is partly or largely responsible for that, driving a lot of papers out of business or making them much weaker and poorer?
Chopra: Well, here's what's interesting. It's not that people aren't wanting to read local news, but the economic model has changed. As journalism has shifted online, those digital ads increasingly have money going to Google and Facebook, rather than the actual publication and the journalists who are writing that content.
Inskeep: So let's talk through solutions. Do you break up Google? I mean, what are the possible solutions on the table here?
Chopra: Well, some people believe that Google's control of ad networks and exchanges are a big problem. It's kind of like a big Wall Street bank owning the New York Stock Exchange. It's a fundamental conflict of interest. I do think we're going to have to look at spinning off various parts of these conglomerates.
Inskeep: Now, I'm interested in this process because the Justice Department makes its proposal, but Google also gets to make their proposal. What do you do if you're the company that says, "actually, we're innocent - we're doing nothing wrong," but they're told anyway to come up with a solution to this problem?
Chopra: Well, now the judge is going to look at different ways to fix the problem. But we don't want to see Google put forth something that will do nothing to fix the problem, and I certainly hope they will not try and seek a cheap settlement with the government.
Inskeep: Speaking as an official who was appointed by President Trump, once upon a time, to an important job in his first term. This administration has given an impression of being anti monopoly and in favor of the little guy. Is that not true?
Chopra: It's hard to say when you look at the inauguration, and the front row is full of big tech conglomerate CEOs. And it was recently reported that Mark Zuckerberg met with the president, purportedly to cut some sort of deal to get out of Facebook's own antitrust trial.
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