Justice Department antitrust officials have asked a judge to force Alphabet Inc. to sell off Chrome, the most widely used browser worldwide, following a ruling from August that deemed Google to be a monopoly, with the company having illegally monopolized the search market through exclusive deals, according to a new report. Bloomberg, which shared the news this week, said that Google’s Chrome browser could be sold for as much as $20 billion if a judge agrees that a sale would be necessary. Statcounter is showing Chrome with a worldwide market share of 66.68% at the time of this posting.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said the Justice Department “continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case.” She added, “the government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed.”