⚠ Chrome DivestitureLow threat

The distribution moat is reinforced by Google owning Chrome, and the danger is that antitrust enforcers have proposed forcing Google to sell it. As a remedy in the search-monopoly case, the US government proposed a divestiture of Chrome¹, on the logic that owning both the most-used browser and the dominant search engine lets Google entrench itself by funneling the browser's users to its own search by default. The court rejected it in September 2025, concluding that “the complete divestiture of Chrome is a poor fit for this case”².

This is dangerous because Chrome is a guaranteed, owned channel — not a placement Google rents but a doorway it controls outright — and losing it would remove one of the redundant guarantees of reach that protect Google no matter how the device landscape shifts. A divested Chrome under different ownership might no longer default to Google search, or might strike deals with rivals, opening the entry point to competitors.

The reasons it failed are the ones that were always working in Google's favor: a forced sale of a beloved free product is a drastic remedy that courts impose reluctantly, the government had to show a strong causal link between the browser and the harm it proved, and even an independent Chrome would have had strong commercial reasons to keep Google as its default. The loop could be legally severed more easily than the underlying preference could be redirected.

Low now. A Chrome divestiture would have been a serious structural blow to the owned-distribution moat, but it was argued in full and refused, and the final judgment that followed in December 2025 imposes conduct remedies instead³. What would revive the threat is an appeals court ordering a harsher remedy; until then the browser remains one of Google's redundant guarantees of reach.