In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company’s payments to device manufacturers to make Google their default search engine violated antitrust laws. In August of 2024, the judge ruled in favor of the DOJ, determining that Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly.
That November, the DOJ submitted its proposed remedies, including breaking up the company by forcing Google to sell its Chrome web browser and divest the Android operating system. Separating Android from Google, a radical proposal that goes far beyond the scope of a suit focused on payments to make Google the default search engine on devices, would damage the entire app ecosystem and put app publishers, particularly smaller apps, at risk. In short, the solution to Google’s legal issues should not be unwinding the entire Android system.
The DOJ’s suit and the judge’s ruling show a misunderstanding of the app ecosystem and Android. Android is an entire operating system that Google provides free of charge to device makers. This helps keep the price of devices low, making supercomputers available for regular people to carry in their pockets.
Specifically, forcing Google to divest Android will make it harder for developers to create apps on the Android system, undermine Android innovation and security, and create a fractured, decentralized app store experience that will make it harder to reach customers and grow an app’s reach.
Google constantly updates the Android operating system’s code so new apps can perform well across various devices from different manufacturers at different price points. Tens of thousands of devices from 1,300 brands run on Android, and consumers can buy a high-quality smartphone for less than $100. Ensuring apps work on all these requires constant updating and changes to the underlying Android code. Google also regularly makes changes to remain on the cutting edge of security and privacy, which consumers and developers care deeply about.
An independent Android might not have the resources or capabilities to continue innovating and maintaining Android as a free, open-source, and secure operating system. An Android that is more susceptible to data breaches, more prone to crashes and compatibility issues with devices, and without Google’s resources to push the envelope of innovation will have serious consequences for developers and publishers. An Android that is no longer free or open-source means higher costs. A weakened and more expensive Android will be a boon for Apple, hurting Android’s ability to compete with iOS and giving Apple more power over consumers and developers.
What’s more, the goals of this lawsuit appear to be to forcibly change more than a century of U.S. antitrust policy and align it not just with European-style regulations but, in some cases, go beyond them. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) imposed onerous regulations that have significantly degraded the app ecosystem. For example, the DMA banned integration between different services offered by the same company and created a more fragmented digital experience. Ultimately, consumers want a smartphone that functions out of the box with a functioning operating system and apps like Chrome, Google Play, and countless others already installed, alongside a range of competing apps consumers can easily choose. While European consumers are starting to feel the adverse effects of this dis-integrated approach, not even the DMA went so far as to force Google to divest Android.
With the remedies portion of the trial in April, the judge has a critically important choice to make: side with the DOJ and ultimately rewrite the app ecosystem, handing a massive victory to Apple, or side with the thousands of app publishers and developers who understand that Android creates choice and competition in the smartphone market and makes it easier to bring apps to market.
