A US court filing on Tuesday revealed that Google will be required to divest parts of its business that have contributed to the search engine's monopoly in online search.
US District Judge Amit Mehta's ruling in Washington was a major win for antitrust enforcers who have brought an ambitious set of cases against major technology, or Big Tech, companies over the past four years.
Prosecutors said such actions can potentially reshape how Americans search for information on the internet after Google, which processes 90% of US internet searches, is suspected of building an illegal monopoly.

Some companies that compete with Google have even called for a breakup.

The Justice Department is expected to file a more detailed proposal with the court by Nov 20. Google will have a chance to propose its own remedies by Dec 20.

Google has announced its plan to appeal, noting that its search engine has won users through quality. Google said it faces robust competition from Amazon and other sites where users go directly to search for goods or services, and that users (are not hindered) and can freely choose other search engines as their default.

Reviews site Yelp, which sued Google over online search in August, says spinning off Google's Chrome browser and AI services should be on the table. Yelp also wants Google to be prohibited from giving preference to its own local business pages, which compete with Yelp, in search results.

Adam Epstein, president and co-CEO of search ad company adMarketplace, said the threat of ordering Google to sell off parts of its business could be used as a way to enforce less drastic remedies, adding that Google is unlikely to comply unless there is some force of assertion.

Rival search engine company DuckDuckGo has called for the court to require Google to license its search results to competitors who could then build and improve their own products.