According to sources who spoke to Bloomberg, Alphabet, Google's parent company, may be splitting its operations into several companies. The US Justice Department is considering separating Android and Chrome from Google, and discussions are underway over the independence of AdWords.
These are the toughest proposals discussed, but there are less severe measures to prevent Google from gaining a monopoly, including requiring the company to share more data with competitors and taking steps to prevent it from abusing its position.
The Justice Department's arguments have intensified following a ruling earlier this month, when Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google had illegally monopolized the search engine market by paying companies including Apple and Samsung more than $2.5 billion to run its online search and text search ads.
The judge's decision is historic, as it is the first time in 40 years that an American company has been found guilty by a U.S. court.
The last time a similar situation occurred was in the early 1980s, when AT&T was found to be enjoying an illegal advantage over its competitors in the landline telephone business. In 1984, the company was ordered to split its services into several companies.
US authorities tried something similar with Microsoft twenty years ago and failed, and now time will tell whether they will succeed in pushing Google to divest Chrome, Android and AdWords, its most lucrative businesses.
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