This week, the Justice Department submitted a framework for potential remedies in its antitrust case against Google Search. In its filing, the DOJ is considering breaking off Chrome or Android from Google and forced data sharing, among other unreasonable remedies. The response from experts has been immediate and clear: the DOJ’s proposed remedies are extreme, disproportionate, and dangerous for innovation and consumers. 

Breaking up Google would hurt consumers and stifle critical AI innovation.

A breakup will also harm AI innovation that is crucial to both technology and science. On Wednesday, two Google DeepMind scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for groundbreaking AI-driven research on proteins. This kind of research is exactly what would suffer if Google is broken up. A recent CCIA report explains: “Google is a leading player in artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and other technological innovations that have shaped industries and markets globally… Splitting Google into separate entities could dampen this innovation engine. Without the financial strength that comes from its position in search and advertising, Google’s ability to fund high-risk, high-reward ventures could be curtailed.”

A breakup would not accomplish anything except punish Google for succeeding. CNBC’s Jim Cramer, who has been a vocal opponent of the DOJ’s overstepping actions, noted: “This is devastating. Google will be a shell of its former self if they do this.”

— Cramer pointed out that the DOJ is not trying to improve competition or consumer welfare, saying, “What [the DOJ] want[s] is to say, ‘This company is a monopolist. It must be punished. It’s got to become the equivalent of a Greyhound bus. It can’t really have any edge.'”

A breakup will impose direct costs on consumers. In a recent analysis, CCIA chief economist Trevor Wagener found that a breakup could increase operating costs by $64 to $80 per user in the United States and Canada. He concluded: “Splitting Google services across a larger number of companies would make the operating cost increases worse while also reducing the potential for cross-subsidization of many currently free-to-use services. A ‘break Google into many pieces’ scenario would increase both the size of new costs and the expected share of those cost increases passed on to consumers, harming consumer welfare considerably.”

A breakup is impractical and excessive. The New York Times pointed out why breaking up Google is not only excessive, but impractical as well. The DOJ will need to prove that a breakup is the only option, and that “lesser fixes” wouldn’t address the underlying issues it alleges. Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School, called a breakup “tilting at windmills” and “very unlikely to be granted by the judge.”

Forcing Google to share its Search data is inconsistent with antitrust law and puts consumer security at risk.

Mandated sharing on Search data would go against decades of antitrust precedent. In its place, it would create a precedent for government overreach by disrupting a free and popular product for the sake of bolstering rivals who have inferior products. As Josh Withrow has written, it will set a troubling precedent for companies and “their ability to make voluntary transactions that boost their products.”

— Adam Kovacevich of the Chamber of Progress pointed out that forced data sharing is inconsistent with the existing analysis of Judge Mehta, who is presiding over the Google Search case. In his opinion, Judge Mehta wrote that Google has “no obligation to provide [its] rivals with a ‘sufficient’ level of service.” Kovacevich explains: “Most egregiously, DOJ proposes that Google share its search query data and algorithms – its secret sauce, spent decades refining – with rival search engines. This is exactly the kind of “duty to deal” idea that Judge Mehta already rejected.”

User privacy will be put at risk. Requiring Google to share its click and query data with competitors would result in significant privacy challenges due to the difficulty of safely anonymizing the data. Chris DiBona, a longtime leader in open source software, recently called forced sharing “wildly disrespectful and destructive of human privacy” and pointed out, if anything, data access should be more limited, not less. 

Data sharing clearly makes consumers worse off. A major reason courts have not allowed “duty to deal” interventions is because they stifle innovations that benefit consumers. Forcing a company to share its hard-won success with rivals would destroy the incentive to succeed and stifle continued investment in new technologies. Erik Hovenkamp, a professor at Cornell Law School, notes: “intervention is much harder to justify on economic policy grounds, as it risks chilling investment in valuable new technologies.” 

In this case, the Court should consider what remedies are supposed to be: “narrowly tailored to address specific conduct,” as CCIA’s Matt Schruers has said. It’s clear that the remedies the DOJ is calling for are exactly the opposite.