DOJ's Chrome Divestiture Plan: A Wrong Turn in the Google Monopoly Case?

The Department of Justice's attempt to resolve Google's monopoly issues by forcing the sale of Chrome is misguided, argues this piece. The core monopolistic practice is Google paying to be the default search engine, not Chrome itself. Chrome's value to Google is largely indirect—its investment in web standards. Forcing a sale would harm Google's investment in these standards, hurting the web ecosystem, leading to stagnation, and pushing operating system vendors towards closed systems. A more appropriate solution, the author suggests, is to prohibit Google from paying for default search placement and mandate browser choice for users.