Last week, the DOJ introduced their final proposed remedies in its case against Google. The DOJ is seeking to break up Google by forcing it to sell its Chrome browser and wants Google to allow rival search engines access to its search results and data. The agency is also advocating for a requirement to notify regulators before the company makes new AI investments and for Google to be prohibited from integrating AI features into its products. 

These remedies undermine innovation, consumer welfare, competition, and national security. ​By enforcing divestitures and forced data sharing, the DOJ is weakening U.S. technological leadership and cybersecurity while giving foreign competitors an advantage. Rather than fostering competition, these actions raise consumer costs, disrupt existing systems, and ultimately harm American consumers and national security.

Divesting Chrome Will Ultimately Harm Consumers 

Chrome’s strength comes from its deep integration with Google’s search and security features, making it more than just a standalone browser. Selling it off would disrupt this synergy, much like cutting off a foot from the body. This synergy is what allows Google to offer many of its services to consumers free of charge. As experts have highlighted, these remedies would change that: 

— According to former FTC advisor Jay Ezrielev, “The remedy would weaken synergy between the search engine and Google’s applications, undermining the economic rationale for making applications available for free. Thus, Google may begin to charge user fees for its popular applications such as Google Maps, Gmail, Waze, Docs, and Sheets.”

Antitrust experts recognize that extreme actions, like divestment from Chrome, could also have unintended consequences like raising consumer costs. 

— Professor Herbert Hovenkamp points out, “In highly innovative markets, mandated breakups are perilous, because the consequences are so hard to predict.” This is echoed in legal precedent: “Accordingly, ‘[w]hen it comes to fashioning an antitrust remedy, … caution is key,’ as ‘markets are often more effective than the heavy hand of judicial power when it comes to enhancing consumer welfare.'” (NCAA v. Alston, 594 U.S. 69, 106 (2021)).

This concern for unintended consequences caused by the DOJ’s remedies is even shared by companies currently competing with Google’s Chrome. Mozilla – developers of the Firefox browser – expressed this in a statement to the media responding to the remedies: 

— “We are concerned that the revised judgment overlooks the impact on small and independent browsers – key drivers of competition, innovation and consumer choice. Unfortunately, it will cause consequences for independent browsers like Firefox that pioneer an open web. The repercussions of this judgment could have far-reaching effects, potentially undermining choice and innovation, for consumers worldwide.”

Furthermore, a Chrome divestiture would weaken cybersecurity for millions of users. As part of the Google ecosystem, Chrome benefits from Google’s advanced, centralized cybersecurity system that protects users and continuously updates protections against emerging threats. Divesting Chrome from Google would mean these protections couldn’t exist to the same level, as Chrome would no longer have access to Google’s centralized resources and expertise.

— Brandon Pugh, Policy Director and Resident Senior Fellow, Cybersecurity at R street, notes that: “If the remedy were divestiture, these security protections would likely be unavailable to those entities, forcing them to develop solutions themselves, duplicate efforts, and/or lack a security solution. Even if they were still available, they would likely be less effective because they work across products and rely on insights gleaned from one to protect another.”

Forced Data Sharing Introduces Serious Privacy and National Security Risks

As part of its remedies, the DOJ wants to allow rival search engines to display Google’s results and have access to its data for the next decade. This forced data sharing would introduce serious privacy and national security risks. Search data contains highly sensitive user information, and experts warn that making it available to others, especially foreign competitors like China’s DeepSeek, could expose users to greater vulnerabilities:

— As the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board highlights, this is a serious risk to national security:  “DOJ even wants Google to socialize its data. The government’s filing proposes to force Google ‘to provide rivals and potential rivals both user-side and ads data for a period of ten years, at no cost, on a non-discriminatory basis.’ Could this include foreign competitors, such as China’s Tencent or ByteDance?”

— Brandon Pugh, Policy Director and Resident Senior Fellow, Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats at R street, warned: “…if sensitive data ends up in the hands of an adversary or criminal group—or a company with weak data security and privacy protections—the consequences can be detrimental. Data can be used to identify military and intelligence assets, turned into potential blackmail, or enable adversaries to carry out more effective cybersecurity incidents.”

— Software engineer and former Google director of open source, Chris DiBona, stressed the dire consequences of forced sharing for privacy: “To release this data stream would be such a grievous harm on American citizens privacy that it would be well nigh unrecoverable. If that’s the actual goal here, the end of privacy, then this is one way to do it? Do you think police overreach, identity theft, scams or predatory corporate behavior is bad now? It’s gonna get so much worse if you release this data.”

Beyond security and privacy concerns, this remedy also seriously undermines U.S. AI leadership. As we have pointed out before, the U.S. faces intense competition in AI from China’s DeepSeek. Deliberately propping up foreign competition against one of the most prominent American companies in AI innovation only hurts American competitiveness.  

— As CCIA President Matt Schruers aptly stated, “At a time when U.S. digital services are in a fierce global competition for technology leadership, structural remedies that weaken U.S. companies are not wise and risk handing an economic advantage to adversaries abroad.”