Judge orders Google to share search data with rivals, end exclusive deals

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered a major reshaping of Google’s search business, requiring the company to share portions of its search data with qualified rivals and barring exclusive default deals, while stopping short of forcing the breakup of Chrome or Android. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta issued the remedies after previously finding that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search, a ruling that government lawyers had called the most significant antitrust challenge to a tech giant in decades.

Mehta’s 226 page opinion directs Google to provide other search providers access to certain parts of its search index and user interaction data and to offer search and search-ad syndication services at standard rates so competitors can produce quality results. The judge also prohibited Google from entering or maintaining exclusive agreements that tie the distribution of Search, Chrome, Assistant, or Gemini to other apps or revenue arrangements, and barred contract terms that would effectively prevent other providers from being installed on devices.

The remedies are behavioral rather than structural. Mehta rejected the Department of Justice’s request to force Google...