What a possible sale of Chrome could mean for Google? Who could buy the browser?

Will Google be forced to sell its widely used Chrome browser? 

The United States Department of  Justice (DoJ) and other states on Wednesday (November 20) submitted a proposal to the US District Court Judge Amit Mehta to address “Google’s unlawful monopolisation,” recommending, among other measures, that the tech giant divest its Chrome web browser. The development comes after Mehta ruled that ‘Google is a monopolist’ and acted as one to maintain its monopoly. The landmark judgement was made in July this year.

How will this impact Google?

“This would be a huge gut punch to Google,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. Google provides free search, making money off targeting ads and features that promote online commerce.

“It would greatly alter (Google’s) business model,” said Syracuse University professor of advertising Beth Egan.

Selling Chrome would also deprive Google of a rich source of information used to train its algorithms and promote its other services like Maps.

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Launched in 2008, Chrome dominates the browser market, dwarfing rivals Edge and Safari, developed by Microsoft and Apple, respectively. Egan believed Google would find a way to recover if forced to sell Chrome.

“I don’t think divesting the browser is going to kill Google as a company,” Egan said. She noted that it could be its users who wind up suffering, given the case Google is making in blog posts on the matter.

What is the value of Chrome?

A Bloomberg analyst estimates that Chrome, which is used by more than three billion people around the world, would sell for at least $15 billion. However, given the lack of precedent, predicting how much Chrome would fetch on the market is tricky.

A Chinese investment group bought an internet browser from Opera Software ASA in Norway for $600 million in 2016, but it only claimed 350 million users at the time.

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Who is looking to buy Chrome?

There are very few potential buyers for Chrome, according to Emarketer senior analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf. “It’s likely that any company with deep enough pockets to afford Chrome is already under antitrust scrutiny,” Mitchell-Wolf said.

“If I had to speculate, my inclination is to look at US-based artificial intelligence players.” While Chrome being bought by the likes of OpenAI would certainly raise antitrust concerns, the US government could see it as a way for the nation to prioritise innovation on the global stage.

Elon Musk’s AI startup could conceivably be a Chrome contender, bankrolled by his riches and having the deal cleared thanks to his close working relationship with incoming president Donald Trump.

Will this be a win for Google’s competitors?

Analysts agreed that people will keep using Chrome regardless of who owns it , provided the quality doesn’t plummet. “This assumes Chrome retains its most popular features and continues innovating,” said analyst Mitchell-Wolf.

“Search behaviours are a function of convenience first, trust and experience second.” The justice department’s argument that people use Chrome because it is a default search engine in devices is off the mark, the analyst added.

Will there be a Trump factor at play?

Many doubt that Judge Mehta will embrace all of the justice department’s proposed remedies in the case. CFRA analyst Angelo Zino considered the measures “extreme and unlikely to be imposed by the court.”

The incoming Trump administration also “remains a wild card” regarding whether justice officials will back off the idea of breaking up Google. Trump in October indicated he opposes dismantling Google, believing such a move would be against the interests of the US internationally.

“China is afraid of Google” and a breakup would hurt the company, Trump reasoned at the time. Meanwhile, Trump has also accused Google of being unfair to conservatives.

With inputs from AFP