$GOOGL

Google not required to sell Chrome in antitrust remedy ruling; shares jump Sep. 02, 2025

Shares in Alphabet rose after hours (NASDAQ:GOOG) +5.7%, (NASDAQ:GOOGL) +5.8% following news that Google won't be forced to sell its flagship Chrome Web browser in a closely watched antitrust case.

Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that Google must open up competition in online search by sharing more data with competitors, and said that the company could not enter exclusive contracts for search, but he fell short of prosecutors' push to make Google divest the browser, the world's top browser by market share.

That followed Mehta's ruling last year that Google held an illegal monopoly in online search and search-tied advertising.

In any case, Google will appeal the ruling, meaning that any remedies could come years in the future.

CEO Sundar Pichai has argued that sharing substantial data with rivals opens up the possibility of competitors reverse-engineering its technology.

The case is just one antitrust front on which Google is defending itself. A September trial will take on a Justice Dept. case charging Google with illegal monopolies in advertising technology, while the company will keep fighting a ruling it lost against Epic Games addressing required changes to its Play app store.

Last month, as chatter swirled about the possible divestment, AI company Perplexity floated the idea of paying $34.5B for the Chrome browser.