Punishment against Google, a U.S. IT company that recently lost an anti-trust lawsuit, is expected to be imposed in August next year.
According to Bloomberg News on the 7th (local time), Judge Amit Mehta of the Federal Court in Washington, DC, said in a trial the day before that he wanted to make a decision on punishment by August next year for Google’s monopoly on the search market.
The court said Google should be given a fair opportunity to respond, and ordered the plaintiff’s side, the Ministry of Justice, to submit a punishment proposal by the end of this year.
Earlier, the Ministry of Justice said it would submit a punishment bill to the court in February next year, saying it would take time to find out the facts. However, Judge Mehta demanded the Justice Ministry, saying, “Google needs to know exactly what the plaintiff wants,” adding, “It should be accurate and detailed.”
Judge Mehta said on May 5 that Google blocked competition through exclusive contracts, such as paying 26 billion U.S. dollars to Apple and others to set its search engine as default values on smartphones and web browsers, and judged Google as a monopoly company. He said he will decide punishment for such illegal activities through additional hearings.
It is unclear what kind of punishment the U.S. government will impose on Google. Some news reports said that the Justice Department is considering the possibility of compulsory division of Google’s operating system Android and web browser Chrome to prevent Google’s monopoly. If the court approves the decision, it will likely be the largest forced division of a U.S. company since AT&T, a U.S. telecommunications company that was split into eight companies in 1984.
There is also the possibility that the government will ask for a ban on exclusive contracts. Bloomberg predicted, “The government may demand less harsh measures than dismantling, including requiring Google to share more data with its competitors.”
SOPHIA KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
