Big changes could be coming to Google. The U.S. government wants to break up parts of the tech giant after a judge said the company broke the law by crushing its competition in the search engine business.

What's Happening?

The Department of Justice just dropped a bombshell proposal: Google needs to sell Chrome, its popular web browser. Chrome is huge - about two out of three people use it to browse the internet. But the government says that's part of the problem. They think Google uses Chrome to keep other search engines from having a fair shot at competing.

But Wait, There's More

The government isn't stopping at Chrome. They're also eyeing Android, Google's smartphone system. They've given Google two choices: sell Android entirely or accept strict rules about how they can use it. If Google keeps Android but doesn't play nice with the new rules, they might be forced to sell it anyway.

What Else Would Change?

The proposal includes several other big changes:

• Google couldn't pay Apple and other companies to make Google the default search engine
• They'd have to share their search data with competitors
• Their advertising business would need to be more transparent
• A special committee would watch to make sure Google follows the rules

How's Google Taking It?

Not well. Google's lawyers are calling the plan extreme and say it would hurt American technology leadership. The company plans to fight back with its own proposals next month.

Money Talks

The financial impact of this news hit Google's bottom line immediately. When word got out about the government's breakup plan, investors got nervous. Alphabet (that's Google's parent company) saw its stock price tumble more than 5% in a single day of trading.

To put that in perspective, this wasn't just a small dip. Alphabet is one of the world's most valuable companies, worth hundreds of billions of dollars. A 5% drop means billions in market value vanished in just hours. This happened even though Google's stock has actually been doing pretty well this year - it's up about 20% since January.

What's Next?

Nothing's set in stone yet. The court will start looking at these proposals in April 2025, and the judge wants to make a final decision by the end of that summer. Whatever happens, it could completely change how we search the internet and use our phones.

The last time we saw something this big in tech was back in the '90s when Microsoft got in trouble for similar reasons. Now it's Google's turn in the hot seat, and the outcome could reshape the internet as we know it.