Google has filed a motion detailing how it would fix antitrust violations alleged against it by the Justice Department after the Justice Department asked Google to sell Chrome and face sanctions that would prevent it from favoring its own search engine in Android.
Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in August that Google had violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, and called Google a “monopolist.” Google said in the motion filed Friday night that it disagreed with the ruling, but suggested ways to make its contracts with browser companies and Android device makers more flexible.
In a blog post summarizing the filing, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs Lee-Anne Mulholland wrote that the proposal would allow browser companies like Apple and Mozilla to “continue to offer Google Search to their users and earn revenue from that partnership” while allowing them to “have multiple default agreements across different platforms (e.g., a different default search engine for iPhones and iPads) and browsing modes.”
And browsers will be able to change their default search provider every 12 months. The proposal would also give device makers “additional flexibility to preload multiple search engines, and to preload any Google app independently of preloading Search or Chrome.”
Google said it plans to appeal the judge’s ruling ahead of a hearing in April, and will submit a revised proposal on March 7. In the blog post, Mulholland called the DOJ’s proposal “overboard,” and further wrote that it reflects an “interventionist agenda” and “goes far beyond what the Court has ruled is our agreements with partners to distribute Search.”
The MacBook Air M3 is also one of the lightest and thinnest systems we’ve reviewed, and it’s noticeably quieter thanks to its fanless design. Although Apple recently introduced its new M4 chip in the iPad Pro, we may not see it in the MacBook Air until next year. For now, the MacBook Air M3 is still a great laptop to buy, especially if you want a machine with good battery life.