The Department of Justice is expected to file a suit against Google on Tuesday for violating antitrust regulations, the Associated Press reports.
The Justice Department is expected to allege that Google, which is a division of Alphabet, paid billions of dollars to Apple, web browser companies and other mobile-phone manufacturers in order for those companies to maintain Google as their default search engine. Those payments and similar arrangements have allowed Google to maintain a lock on the web-search market, which has long been the foundation of its business. In one of the arrangements, Google made it so that its browser could not be deleted from mobile phones that come pre-loaded with the company’s Android operating software.
The Justice Department won’t immediately seek to have Alphabet broken up. But the Justice Department could eventually seek to force a change in how Alphabet operates, which could include splitting Google from the rest of the business.
This is a developing story. The Associated Press contributed reporting.
