The U.S. Department of Justice is considering asking a federal judge to break up Google after its ubiquitous search engine was declared an illegal monopoly, but it is just one of many possible remedies under review, according to a court filing.

In court papers filed late Tuesday, government lawyers outlined a series of potential remedies it may pursue, including restrictions on how Google’s artificial intelligence mines other websites to deliver search results, and blocking Google from paying companies like Apple billions of dollars annually to ensure that Google is the default search engine presented to consumers on gadgets like iPhones.

Tuesday’s filing is the first step in a monthslong legal process to come up with remedies that could reshape a company that’s long been synonymous with online search.

“For more than a decade, Google has controlled the most popular distribution channels, leaving rivals with little-to-no incentive to compete for users,” the antitrust enforcers wrote in the filing. “Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow.”

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta r uled in August that Google’s search engine has been illegally exploiting the dominance of its search engine to squash competition and stifle innovation. He has outlined a timeline for a trial on the proposed remedies next spring and plans to issue a decision by August 2025.

The court filing is the first time that the government has given any indication of the types of remedies it will pursue, but under the meticulous approach ordered by Mehta, the government may ultimately opt not to pursue remedies like divestiture.

The Justice Department will conduct discovery over the coming weeks and put forth a more detailed proposal next month.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in response to the filing that the Department of Justice was “already signaling requests that go far beyond the specific legal issues” in this case. “Government overreach in a fast-moving industry may have negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers.”

Google has already said it plans to appeal Mehta’s ruling, but the tech giant must wait until he finalizes a remedy before doing so. The appeals process could take as long as five years, predicts George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University who was the chief economist for the Justice Department’s antitrust division for most of the 1970s.

During a lengthy trial in Washington, much of the evidence centered on deals Google made with other tech companies to ensure that Google is the default search engine on consumer technology. In 2021 alone, Google spent more than $26 billion to lock in those default agreements, according to trial testimony.

As a result, much of the speculation about potential remedies has focused on whether Google would be barred from making such deals. In Tuesday’s filing, lawyers referred to those distribution deals as a “starting point for addressing Google’s unlawful conduct.”

To that end, the department said it is also considering asking for structural changes to stop Google from leveraging products such as its Chrome browser, Android operating system, AI products or app store to benefit its search business.

“We’ve invested billions of dollars in Chrome and Android,” Mulholland wrote. “Breaking them off would change their business models, raise the cost of devices, and undermine Android and Google Play in their robust competition with Apple’s iPhone and App Store.”

Another proposal floated by the government allowing companies to opt out of having their information used by Google when it delivers AI-enhanced responses to consumers’ search queries.

“Google’s ability to leverage its monopoly power to feed artificial intelligence features is an emerging barrier to competition and risks further entrenching Google’s dominance,” government lawyers wrote. Google’s blog post response noted that artificial intelligence is a rapidly emerging technology that is the subject of fierce competition in the commercial market.

“There are enormous risks to the government putting its thumb on the scale of this vital industry,” Mulholland wrote.

After the government submits its more detailed proposal next month for how to tackle Google’s anticompetitive practices. Google in turn will offer its own ideas for how to make fixes in December. Prosecutors will then make their final proposal in March 2025.

Google has been facing intensifying regulatory pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, with European Union antitrust enforcers also suggesting that breaking up the company is the only way to satisfy competition concerns about its digital ad business.

Google lost its final legal challenge on Tuesday against a European Union penalty for giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage over rivals in search results, ending a long-running antitrust case that came with a whopping fine.

The European Union’s Court of Justice upheld a lower court’s decision, rejecting the company’s appeal against the 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) penalty from the European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer.

“By today’s judgment, the Court of Justice dismisses the appeal and thus upholds the judgment of the General Court,” the court said in a press release summarizing its decision.

The commission punished the Silicon Valley giant in 2017 for unfairly directing visitors to its own Google Shopping service to the detriment of competitors. It was one of three multibillion-euro fines that the commission imposed on Google in the previous decade as Brussels started ramping up its crackdown on the tech industry.

“We are disappointed with the decision of the Court, which relates to a very specific set of facts,” Google said in a brief statement.  The company said it made changes in 2017 to comply with the commission’s decision requiring it to treat competitors equally. It started holding auctions for shopping search listings that it would bid for alongside other comparison shopping services.

“Our approach has worked successfully for more than seven years, generating billions of clicks for more than 800 comparison shopping services,” Google said.

At the same time, the company appealed the decision to the courts. But the EU General Court, the tribunal’s lower section, rejected its challenge in 2021 and the Court of Justice’s adviser later recommended rejecting the appeal.

European consumer group BEUC hailed the court’s decision, saying it shows how the bloc’s competition law “remains highly relevant” in digital markets.

“Google harmed millions of European consumers by ensuring that rival comparison shopping services were virtually invisible,” director general Agustín Reyna said. “Google’s illegal practices prevented consumers from accessing potentially cheaper prices and useful product information from rival comparison shopping services on all sorts of products, from clothes to washing machines.”

Google is still appealing the other two EU antitrust penalties, which involved its Android mobile operating system and AdSense advertising platform. The company was dealt a setback in the Android case when the EU General Court upheld the commission’s 4.125 billion euro fine in a 2022 decision. Its initial appeal against a 1.49 billion euro fine in the AdSense case has yet to be decided.

Those three cases foreshadowed expanded efforts by regulators worldwide to crack down on the tech industry. The EU has since opened more investigations into Big Tech companies and drafted new laws to clean up social media platforms and regulate artificial intelligence.

Google is now facing particular pressure over its lucrative digital advertising business. In a federal antitrust trial that began Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice is alleging the company holds a monopoly in the “ad tech” industry.

British competition regulators accused Google last week of abusing its dominance in ad tech while the EU is carrying out its own investigation.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis must pick a new Supreme Court justice because the judge he picked to fill a high court vacancy is constitutionally ineligible to serve, the court said in an order issued Friday.

The Florida Supreme Court ordered DeSantis to appoint another judge by Monday, nullifying the appointment of Judge Renatha Francis. Francis would have been the first Caribbean-American justice to serve on the court.

But the state constitution requires that a justice be a member of the Florida Bar for at least 10 years, and Francis was four months shy when DeSantis appointed her in May. At the time DeSantis acknowledged the shortfall, but said she wouldn't be sworn in until Sept. 24, the day she would meet the requirement.

The Supreme Court said that DeSantis was required to name a new justice within 60 days of the resignation of former Justice Robert Luck.

Her appointment was challenged by Democratic state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, a prominent Black state lawmaker.

An Australian appeals court Wednesday upheld convictions against Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic to be found guilty of sexually abusing children, in a decision cheered by scores of abuse survivors and victims’ advocates demonstrating outside the court.

A unanimous jury in December found Pope Francis’ former finance minister guilty of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral more than two decades ago. The Victoria state Court of Appeal rejected his appeal in a 2-1 ruling, with the court’s chief justice saying the majority found Pell’s accuser to be a compelling “witness of truth.”

Pell’s lawyers will examine the judgment and consider an appeal to the High Court, Australia’s final arbiter, his spokeswoman Katrina Lee said. “Cardinal Pell is obviously disappointed with the decision,” her statement said.

The Vatican noted Pell had always maintained his innocence and had a right to appeal. It said its own investigation into Pell would await the outcome of any final appeal in Australia.

″.... the Holy See confirms its closeness to the victims of sexual abuse and its commitment to pursue, through the competent ecclesiastical authorities, those members of the clergy who commit such abuse,” a Vatican statement said, adding it respected the Australian judicial system.

The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference said all Australians must be equal under the law and it accepted the verdict.

“I respectfully receive the court’s decision and I encourage everyone to do the same,” Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli said in a statement.

Pell was sentenced to six years in prison in March and is no longer a member of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals or a Vatican official. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said soon after the appeal was rejected that Pell would be stripped of his Order of Australia honor.

Pell, 78, showed no emotion when Chief Justice Anne Ferguson read the verdict to a packed courtroom but bowed his head moments later. He wore a cleric’s collar but not his cardinal’s ring. Pell had arrived at the court in a prison van and was handcuffed as he was led away by a guard.

Clerical sexual abuse and the Catholic Church’s handling of such cases worldwide have thrown Francis’ papacy into turmoil.

In a little more than a year, the pope has acknowledged he made “grave errors” in Chile’s worst cover-up, Pell was convicted of abuse, a French cardinal was convicted of failing to report a pedophile, and a third cardinal, former U.S. church leader Theodore McCarrick, was defrocked after a Vatican investigation determined he molested children and adults.

A lawyer for Jussie Smollett said Tuesday that she would welcome cameras in the courtroom during the “Empire” actor’s trial on charges accusing him of lying to the police, saying there has been a lot of leaked misinformation and cameras would allow the public to “see the evidence and the lack thereof.”

Attorney Tina Glandian made the comments during a brief hearing Tuesday in Cook County criminal court during which both sides agreed that cameras would be allowed at the next hearing in the case, which is scheduled for Thursday. During that hearing, the case will be assigned to a trial judge who will then likely ask Smollett to enter a plea.

During the hearing, which was held after local news organizations requested that cameras be allowed in the courtroom, Judge LeRoy Martin, Jr. said that the new judge will decide whether or not to allow cameras in the courtroom during subsequent hearings and the trial.

After the hearing, Glandian told reporters that evidence has been presented against Smollett that is “demonstrably false.”

“We welcome cameras in the courtroom so that the public and the media can see the actual evidence and what we believe is the lack of evidence against Mr. Smollett and we look forward to complete transparency and the truth coming out,” she said.

Smollett was charged last month with one count of misconduct —the felony in Illinois that people are charged with when accused of lying to police — because he allegedly lied to police about being the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by two masked men in downtown Chicago on Jan. 29. Last week, a grand jury indicted him on 16 counts of the same crime.

Prosecutors allege that Smollett, who is black and gay, enlisted the help of two other black men and staged the Jan. 29 attack because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career. Those men have admitted to police that they took part in the staged attack for Smollett, who paid them $3,500.

Smollett’s attorneys have called 16 counts “prosecutorial overkill.” The actor, who is free on bond, maintains his innocence.

The New York trial of a prominent Hong Kong businessman charged in a United Nations-linked bribery conspiracy is set to begin with jury selection Monday.

The trial of Dr. Chi Ping Patrick Ho begins a year after he was arrested on charges accusing him of paying bribes so a Chinese energy conglomerate could secure business advantages. He has been held without bail.

His lawyer has said Ho is looking forward to clearing his name. Ho was once Hong Kong's home affairs secretary.

Ho has insisted he is not guilty of charges that he conspired in October 2014 to bribe the president of Chad and the Ugandan foreign minister.

Prosecutors say Ho's former co-defendant, Cheikh Gadio, will testify at trial that Ho arranged a $2 million bribe to be delivered to Chad's president in gift boxes.

Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska overruled defense objections, saying Gadio can testify that he understood Ho's $2 million cash payment to President Idriss Deby to be a "bribe."

Ho's lawyers had argued that Gadio's testimony as to whether the $2 million was a "bribe" was lay opinion and should be kept out of evidence the jury can consider.

Europe's human rights court handed a partial victory Thursday to civil rights groups that challenged the legality of mass surveillance and intelligence-sharing practices exposed by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled that some aspects of British surveillance regimes violated provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights that are meant to safeguard Europeans' rights to privacy.

Specifically, the court said there wasn't enough independent scrutiny of processes used by British intelligence services to sift through data and communications intercepted in bulk.

The ruling cited a "lack of oversight of the entire selection process" and "the absence of any real safeguards."

The court's seven judges also voted 6-1 that Britain's regime for getting data from communications service providers also violated the human rights convention, including its provisions on privacy and on freedom of expression.

But the ruling wasn't all bad for British spies. The court said it is "satisfied" that British intelligence services take their human rights convention obligations seriously "and are not abusing their powers."

The court also gave a green light to procedures British security services use to get intelligence from foreign spy agencies, saying the intelligence-sharing regime doesn't violate the convention's privacy provisions.