During the ongoing antitrust case against Google in the United States, a surprising development has emerged: Yahoo has expressed interest in purchasing the Google Chrome browser, should it be put up for sale.
The U.S. Department of Justice is pushing to break up Google’s dominance in the internet search market and is advocating for the company to sell off certain services — one of which is the Chrome browser.
At the court hearing, Yahoo Search’s head, Brian Provost, stated that Yahoo would be interested in acquiring Chrome if the court orders Google to sell it. According to Provost, the deal could be worth tens of billions of dollars.
He also noted that Yahoo is currently working on rebuilding its own search engine and browser. Yahoo was a market leader in the early 2000s but lost its position to Google. In 2021, Yahoo was acquired by Apollo Global Management, after which the company began focusing on growth again.
Other potential buyers reportedly include companies like OpenAI and Perplexity.
Google, on the other hand, warned that selling Chrome to another company could negatively affect users. The new owner might introduce fees or fail to properly maintain the browser’s functionality.
