A US judge ruled Google will be required to share online search data with competitors, in a move to reduce its monopoly power, but it won’t be forced to sell its Chrome browser or Android operating system.

In the landmark antitrust case, the court rejected the Justice Department’s push to force Google to sell its Chrome browser and didn’t include a “contingent divestiture” of the Android operating system.

The judge wrote: “Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints.”

In his illegal monopoly ruling, US District judge Amit Mehta in Washington, DC, stated Google will be “barred from entering or maintaining any exclusive contract relating to the distribution” of Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant and its Gemini app.

The tech giant also will have to make available to “qualified competitors” certain search index and user-interaction data, though not ads data. The court narrowed the data sets Google will be required to share “to tailor the remedy to its anticompetitive conduct”.

The 226-page decision explained Google will not be barred from making payments to partners, including Apple, for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products, arguing that cutting off payments from Google “almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets and consumers”.

This means Google’s default search deals can continue.

Google said in a blog it has “concerns about how these requirements will impact our users and their privacy” and is reviewing the decision closely. 

Last year, the Department of Justice called for Google to divest its Chrome browser as part of proposed remedies to restore competition in the search market.