DOJ Antitrust Case Aims To Undo Google-Anthropic Partnership

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PYMNTS: The Justice Department's proposal to resolve its antitrust case over online search against Google reportedly would force the tech giant to unwind its partnership with artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic. A recommendation in the Justice Department's court filing Wednesday (Nov. 20) that Google be barred from partnerships with companies that control where consumers search for information, is intended to apply to the company's investment in Anthropic, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Nov. 21).

It was reported in October 2023 that Google had invested $500 million in Anthropic and agreed to contribute another $1.5 billion over time. During that same month, PYMNTS reported that Anthropic's commitment to building and deploying what the company said are generative AI capabilities with stronger built-in guardrails, differentiated it from other foundational AI models on the market. On Tuesday (Nov. 19), the U.K.'s competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), cleared Google's partnership with Anthropic, saying that it had determined that the deal between the tech giant and the AI startup did not warrant additional investigation. 'The CMA does not believe that Google has acquired material influence over Anthropic as a result of the partnership,' the regulator said in its assessment of the arrangement. U.S. regulators also call for a sale of Google's Chrome browser and restrictions to prevent Android from favoring its own search engine.

'DOJ had a chance to propose remedies related to the issue in this case: search distribution agreements with Apple, Mozilla, smartphone OEMs and wireless carriers,' Google said in a Thursday blog post. 'Instead, DOJ chose to push a radical interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America's global technology leadership.'

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