The U.S. Justice Department has asked a federal judge to order that Google LLC offload its Chrome browser.

The request was included in a court filing that became public late Wednesday. The document also proposes other antitrust measures, including that Google change some of its business practices in the search market. The Alphabet Inc. unit pushed back against the request in a statement issued this morning.

The development sent Alphabet shares down more than 5% in trading today.

The Justice Department’s filing relates to an August ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Amit Mehta found that Google maintains an illegal monopoly in the search and search text advertising markets. Following the decision, the Justice Department set out to develop remedies that the search giant can implement to change the situation.

The divestiture of Chrome is among the remedies that the department is proposing. Chrome is in the spotlight because the Justice Department has determined that the browser is among Google’s “key methods for the distribution” of its search engine. 

Today’s filing identifies Android as another key distribution method. The Justice Department believes that ordering Google to offload the operating system along with Chrome would be the “most straightforward” way to address the antitrust concerns around the company’s search business. However, officials have decided against such a move after determining that it might “draw significant objections from Google or other market participants.”

This week’s filing clarified that a sale of Android could still happen in the future. The Justice Department is hoping that the antitrust remedies proposed in this week’s filing will be sufficient to “blunt Google’s ability to use its control of the Android ecosystem to favor its general search services.” But the document adds that a sale of the operating system could be reconsidered by the court if those measures fail to achieve their goal. 

“Despite the market dominance of Chrome, it’s fair to say that a strike against Google’s browser hits the company at one of its weaker points; plenty of reasonable alternatives exist, from Safari to Firefox to Brave, DuckDuckGo and even Microsoft’s revamped Edge,” said Damian Rollison, director of market insights at marketing technology company SoCi. “All of these would likely benefit from a market where Chrome is no longer propped up by membership in the Google family.”

Alongside Chrome and Android, today’s filing covers several other aspects of Google’s business. It places  particular emphasis on a set of agreements that the Alphabet unit has inked with companies such as Apple Inc. to make Google Search the default option on their devices. The Justice Department is asking the court to ban such agreements.

Google’s acquisition strategy is another focus. The Justice Department is arguing that the company should be prohibited from buying or investing in competitors across the search and search text advertising markets without prior approval from U.S. regulatory. Additionally, the Alphabet unit would be required to share some of the data and technologies that power its search engine with rivals. 

“The remedy must enable and encourage the development of an unfettered search ecosystem that induces entry, competition, and innovation as rivals vie to win the business of consumers and advertisers,” Justice Department officials wrote in the filing.

Google pushed back against the antitrust proposal in a blog post today. “It would break a range of Google products — even beyond Search — that people love and find helpful in their everyday lives,” wrote Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer. “We’ll file our own proposals next month, and will make our broader case next year.”

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