Adi Robertson

Moving on from Chrome acquisitions, we’re in the final section, starting with the state attorney. Michael Schwartz is arguing for an education campaign fund that would address “habit, inertia, and brand recognition” barriers that prevent rivals from attracting users and competing with Google. Mehta asks some practical questions: how much money should be put into the fund, and who decides what the campaign to make people aware of alternatives looks like? The attorney says at a high level, it would be Mehta — who doesn’t seem thrilled about that. “I assure you, I am not qualified to tell you what is a good marketing campaign and what is not,” he says.

We’re back to the DOJ, whose attorney is saying Google’s claim only it can steward Chrome is wrong — and that separating Google from Chrome will, conversely, let it evolve. He struggles to cite a specific legal case that would explicitly justify an order like a Chrome divestiture, but he says looking to the body of law on mergers could be useful, and while the judge can’t require Chromium employees to stick around, he could order financial incentives or other measures that would make Google fill any empty roles.

Google’s lawyer is making a long case against the Chrome sale — essentially arguing that nobody else has the pragmatic incentives to keep developing Chromium or the ability to maintain Chrome as competently. Any divested version of Chrome will be “a shadow of the current Chrome,” he says. “I don’t see how anybody would be better off.” Also, he says, 80 percent of Chrome users are outside the US, and they’d be affected by the divestiture as well.

Schmidtlein says not only is it not justified by the law, the tangible harms outweigh “speculative benefits” to the competitive landscape. There’s “voluminous evidence” Chrome succeeded through innovation.

We’re currently hearing from a lawyer for the state lawsuit against Google, and Mehta is drilling down on a fairly salient issue: will Chromium employees actually move from Google to whoever buys it? The attorney says it’s common industry practice for workers to come with a company. That might be a reasonable claim, but it’s not a hard rule — and if it turns out not to apply here, that’s a potentially big temporary hit to Chromium’s maintenance and all the browser makers that rely on it.

Mehta asks whether a Chrome buyer would need to demonstrate it was capable of maintaining the open source Chromium project that powers numerous other browsers. “There are very few that could actually demonstrate it today,” he says. The DOJ’s attorney says there could be a negotiation with the future buyer to ensure a commitment, and people who are currently working on Chromium at Google would come over to the new owner.

Back after a short break, Dahlquist is arguing for why Google should have to sell its web browser. “Browsers are the way users get into the internet,” he says, and a huge part of that is search. He recaps the basics about Chrome’s popularity, including that 35 percent of Google queries come through Chrome.

We’re nearing the end of the day and currently on break. A few broad highlights:

Mehta asks the DOJ’s attorney why Microsoft would bother paying for placement if Google weren’t able to bid, echoing the claim from Google’s lawyer.

Ban Google from bidding for default search engine placement, says Schmidtlein, and Microsoft will just roll up with its own wheelbarrow of cash for a similar exclusive deal with Bing. “This would be one of the most invasive remedies I can imagine, and it would also harm all of these adjacent markets,” he says. He adds that companies are “competing just fine with Gemini” as well.