By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday dropped a proposal to force Alphabet’s Google to sell its investments in artificial intelligence companies, including OpenAI competitor Anthropic, to boost competition in online search.
The DOJ still seeks a court order requiring Google to sell its Chrome browser and take other measures aimed at addressing what a judge said was Google’s illegal search monopoly, according to court papers filed in Washington.
Google holds a minority stake worth billions of dollars in Anthropic. Losing the investment would hand a competitive advantage to OpenAI and its partner Microsoft, Anthropic wrote to the court in February.
The DOJ first made a draft recommendation in November. In the final proposal on Friday, prosecutors asked that Google be required to give prior notice to the government about future generative AI investments.
Google, which has said it will appeal, has made its own proposal that would loosen agreements with Apple and others to set Google as the default search engine on new devices. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta has scheduled a trial on the proposals for April.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)
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