*(Image credit: The New York Times)

Google averts a Chrome divestiture, as Judge Amit Mehta rightly labels DOJ’s push for such an outcome “an overreach”. However, in a very interesting turn, Judge Mehta doesn’t barr Google payments to device vendors, including the now notorious $20 billion annual payout to Apple, he just barred it from being exclusive. It remains to be seen if that is enough to shake lose Google’s entrenched search chokehold. On the plus side, Judge Mehta did order Google to share search index and user-interaction data with “qualified competitors” to prevent exclusionary behavior. Google is also required to offer search and search ad syndication services to competitors at standard rates so they can deliver quality results while building their own technology. Seems like DOJ’s victory party soured quickly.