Google LLC has proposed limiting its search partnerships to address antitrust violations in its search business, as an alternative to the U.S. Justice Department’s proposal to sell its Chrome browser.

Lee-Anne Mulholland, vice president of regulatory affairs at Google, outlined the company’s proposed remedy in a blog post on Friday. This is in response to an August ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that the company operated an illegal monopoly in the search engine and search advertising markets.

The DOJ and the group of states that filed the case against Google suggested last month that Judge Amit Mehta force the company to sell the Chrome browser to resolve the problems. In addition, they called for Google to be prevented from entering into standard search agreements with companies like Apple In. They also want the company to open its search engine results to rival search companies and are also demanding that it spin off its Android operating system.

Mulholland said today that the DOJ’s proposal reflects an “interventionist agenda” that goes far beyond what the judge’s decision was actually about.

According to them, the main problem with the DOJ’s proposal is that it would actually harm American consumers even more and undermine the country’s global technology leadership by requiring it to share users’ private searches with foreign and domestic competitors, which its ability to innovate and improve its capabilities limits search algorithms.

In her counterproposal, Mulholland suggests that Google be allowed to continue working with third parties like Apple under revenue-sharing agreements so that it could continue to be the default search engine on its devices. However, such deals would instead be non-exclusive.

“We do not propose these changes lightly,” Mulholland said. “It would incur costs for our partners to regulate how they should go about choosing the best search engine for their customers. And they would impose burdensome restrictions and oversight on contracts that have driven down device prices and encouraged innovation in competing browsers, both of which have been good for consumers.”

Google is also proposing to give Android device makers more flexibility to pre-load multiple search engine providers, and no longer force them to pre-install apps like Google Search and Chrome.

Google’s search engine rivals such as Microsoft Corp., which offers the Bing search engine, DuckDuckGo Inc., Qwant SE and Startpage BV would likely benefit enormously if they were forced to sell Chrome, which has a dominant share of the web browser market. However, it remains unclear how a possible Chrome spinoff would work.

Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research Inc., said Judge Mehta would have to make a difficult decision because even the Justice Department has admitted that Google’s top search status is based solely on performance.

“He must decide whether to punish a company for its success or punish partners like Apple and consumers by limiting their choices,” the analyst explained. “If he chooses to punish Google, he will be a major help to competitors like Microsoft.”

But Mueller said it was also important for Judge Mehta to remember that Google’s moat was long gone and the advent of cheap cloud infrastructure made it much easier for potential competitors to emerge.

“Google had to build all the infrastructure it needed to scan and capture the Internet, but today these resources are available to everyone,” the analyst emphasized. “So if someone can come up with a new and improved search algorithm that really outperforms Google, they’re really good to go. Consumers will likely flock to what works best, as they did from Altavita to Yahoo and from Yahoo to Google.”

Judge Mehta has scheduled a hearing in April where both sides will have an opportunity to present their proposals for resolving the case. A final decision is expected in August.

However, the case may be complicated by a possible appeal. Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google, said after the original ruling that the company planned to appeal the judge’s decision, which could mean delaying relief for several years.

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