As American voters consider a potential Harris administration, it’s worth thinking about what it might mean for American business. In its ongoing antitrust case against Google, the Department of Justice (DOJ) is considering structural remedies including breaking up the tech giant, a troubling preview. While Europe and China might cheer the move, Americans should be concerned about losing not just Google’s unmatched services—praised by even its competitors as “miraculous”—but also what this precedent could mean for other successful companies that might find themselves in the crosshairs of a Harris administration.

Although the Trump administration initiated the antitrust case against Google, it is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s antitrust team—formulated under the leadership of Jonathan Kanter, Lina Khan and Tim Wu—that appears determined to dismantle the tech giant.

The court’s issue is that Google’s contracts with Apple and browser providers are simply too long. But instead of pursuing a more straightforward remedy, such as restricting contract options, the team seems intent on a far more radical answer: breaking up America’s most innovative companies.

Before joining the administration, Khan and Wu wrote extensively about their ambitions to break up large corporations. Their writings reflect a view that size and success are inherently suspicious and potentially dangerous. Now, it seems the administration is moving to fulfill these ideological dreams.

The case at hand centers on Google’s dominance in online search. For those who remember the early days of the internet, search was once the domain of Yahoo, AltaVista, and Ask Jeeves—services that were functional but often missed large parts of the web and misunderstood user intent. Google changed all that, creating a product so superior that its name became a verb. Yet in the Biden-Harris antitrust world, this success that serves billions of internet users is now seen as a liability.

The DOJ argues that Google is a monopoly in general internet search and related advertising markets. US District Judge Amit P. Mehta has largely agreed, finding that Google’s search product is so superior that “Google has no true competitor.” However, monopolies are not illegal if they arise from producing better products. Google’s alleged sin lies in maintaining its market position partly through contracts that secure its status as the default search engine on popular platforms, the length of which is problematic according to the judge. His ruling suggests that shorter contracts would allow rivals to gain a foothold and build their own high-quality search engines.

But is dismantling a company a sensible remedy for long-term contracts? Breaking up Google would likely create massive financial costs, worsen user experiences, and do little to address the actual issues raised in the case. A spun-off Chrome might struggle to survive, as evidenced by Mozilla’s reliance on payments from Google. Spinning off the Google Play Store would diminish Google’s ability to elevate user experiences and provide security.

Given that a breakup does not address the core issues of this case, the DOJ’s pursuit of such a remedy seems driven more by ideology or a desire to punish than by sound legal reasoning. Khan and Wu’s writings suggest a belief that government intervention can successfully reshape industries at will, but this assumption ignores the fact that the most brilliant minds in Silicon Valley and Redmond have yet to crack the code for matching Google’s success. It’s unlikely that government lawyers will succeed where the best tech minds have not.

If the goal is to address the specific concerns raised in this antitrust case, more reasonable remedies might include limiting contract lengths or introducing fresh-look periods for renegotiation. If Google’s contracts truly stifle competition, such measures would address the problem without the drastic consequences of a breakup. And if the DOJ and the judge are wrong and Google’s significance is simply the result of superior corporate DNA, no remedy can lift Google’s rivals except by destroying value.

Pursuing an illogical breakup sends a chilling message to American business. Under a Harris administration, success and innovation may be punished rather than rewarded. That’s a message that should concern us all.

The post The Perils of a Google Breakup: A Warning for American Business appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.