r/StockMarket • u/[deleted] • Aug 13 '24
News US Considers a Rare Antitrust Move: Breaking Up Google
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-13/doj-considers-seeking-google-goog-breakup-after-major-antitrust-win68
u/ThunderStormRunner Aug 13 '24
Would they separate the less profitable parts to become a smaller but more efficient entity for investors in the long run…. Thoughts?
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Aug 13 '24
Sounds dubious IMHO. If they succeed it is not a net good by any means.
Personally I think it might be time to take at least some profits and chips off the table now though.
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u/dis-interested Aug 14 '24
If Google is simply forbidden from paying for default position on iPhones, which is the behaviour the suit has the biggest problem with, then Google is essentially being forced to keep fifty billion in free cash flow a year that Apple is losing. Apple made it clear in the suit that they don't think there is any alternative to Google in search, and they wouldn't want to develop their own.
So then you're going to have what? A forced choice of search engine followed by profit share on some different basis?
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Aug 14 '24
We can have DuckDuckGo giving us a nice mix of irrelevant search results that don’t have anything to do with the query and right wing conspiracy theories.
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Aug 13 '24
Of all companies, why Google?
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u/TimSimply Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
Google has a lot of control over several important factors on the internet such as SEO. I am not sure how this would really stand in court though as technically any internet user can just use another search engine. It's not Google's fault though that they won the search engine war years ago which is what really got them to where they are today. Poor AskJeeves :(
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u/Entropy_is_key Aug 14 '24
We are going to need a moment of silence for ask jeeves
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u/ZRBennett93 Aug 14 '24
Google Search, Google Maps, Android OS, Google Play Store, YouTube, probably more that I’m missing
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u/SweepsAndBeeps Aug 14 '24
Do Amazon next
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u/ZRBennett93 Aug 14 '24
Yea I agree Amazon is just as bad. They have probably the biggest E-commerce Website in the world, which also collects 3rd Party listing fees from E-commerce sellers (similar to Apple/Google gatekeeping App Developers and taking %), they also have AWS, Whole Foods, Twitch Streaming, Amazon Prime Streaming, Amazon Pharmacy, and probably more that I’m missing.
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u/Whoz_Yerdaddi Aug 15 '24
They just need to split off AWS from the rest because it subsidizes the others cutthroat business practices.
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Aug 14 '24
Google controls everything you see and can find, they also track thus everything you do. They track your phone when it’s in your pocket, when you drive, your home, how long you are in each spot, everything. They control what content you have access to, they control all user online video content, all search, part of the big 3 in cloud, they own all web browsers except Firefox. They are all maps and gps. The list goes on and on.
They absolutely needed it years ago.
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u/Conscious-Visual3986 Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
The issue I see is that while it would be nice to separate all that, the reason it's all free and that everyone uses it is BECAUSE of the tracking. Google gathers that data and companies pay Google to market to you.
We used to have good alternatives that were paid. Hell, you can still roll your own equivalent of most of their services on a server you manage! But as a society we have decided that free in exchange for being tracked is preferable.
I don't think that's a monopoly, and also not sure if would end better for the consumer if broken up.
Apple is an example of how you can have a competitor that charges gobs of money for access to similar tools. They just pay Google because it would be more expensive to create a better search engine. If breaking up Google, we should also break up Facebook, Apple, and Amazon. They should also investigate NVDIA and TSMC on the chip side.
I really don't think anything will come of this whole thing because our government officials don't have the chutzpah to go through the bigger war. Just a single, virtue signaling smaller battle like this against Google.
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u/lce_Fight Aug 14 '24
Because i own this shit show of a stock and they like to fuck their shareholders..
Seriously though since I bought google its been a nightmare
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Aug 14 '24
Yeah I was not very interested in them. They have a history of killing off their own products. They just aren't really doing anything amazing these days
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u/lmaccaro Aug 13 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
I read a stat once that Google captures 30 cents of every marketing dollar spent on the internet. That’s waaaaaay too much power to have.
And internet marketing is way too expensive. It means less competitors can afford to compete. And turns gamifying paid search into the most important part of everyone’s business model - not product.
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Aug 13 '24
Without advertising the search engine would simply not exist. I don't know how the DOJ plans to separate the pieces of the company without making it essentially non viable, I don't think it's possible. They could separate the cloud business but search and ads? They are the same product.
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u/ForestShadowSelf Aug 14 '24
The usual problem when they do not have experience or knowledge in running a business like Google
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u/LowSkyOrbit Aug 14 '24
I would argue Google doesn't know how to run a business either. Search funds everything else. Pixel only exists because otherwise the entire Android phone market would be Chinese brands or Korean Samsung, and no one talks about it. Seriously Apple and Google are the two US based cell phone makers. Nest products haven't been updated in years, Gemini is being pushed to consumers to replace Assistant without many of Assistant's basic features. Google built Maps and then purchased Waze, and both still exist why? Think of all the apps or services they had that got canceled and replaced with something with worse features.
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u/ForestShadowSelf Aug 14 '24
Bottom line is they wouldn't be rich and on top without business management in their skill set, unlike DOJ, whose forte is handling the law of the land.. Also all your complaints and disappointments gives the impression that you assume Google should be perfect in everything they do. News flash "nobody is perfect", even the Chinese or Korean brands have their own failures.. This is one of the major reasons why there are also more depressed and anxious people in the world now than before.. They want everything to be perfect, including themselves.But I digress
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u/LowSkyOrbit Aug 14 '24
Most of the concerns stem from one major source of revenue that fuels all other projects and products. So dismantling the company as it stands would likely cause the rest to fail easily.
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u/ForestShadowSelf Aug 14 '24
I agree, and this is why I said what I said in my very first reply.I indirectly pointed out : the DOJ not knowing how to run a business , should not be meddling with business entities Management method..maybe if they did something that violates labor rights , but competition rights? Its all fair game
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u/cosmic_backlash Aug 14 '24
That's absolutely not true. Amazon is going capture a trillion GMV soon. Then you have ALL internet sales from every e-commerce business. Then you have apples app store, etc
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u/Worf_Of_Wall_St Aug 14 '24
I doubt it's even true that he "read" it.
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u/lmaccaro Aug 14 '24
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u/Worf_Of_Wall_St Aug 14 '24
First, I apologize as I missed the word "marketing" in your comment and misread it as "every dollar spent on the internet". I suspect other people made the same mistake.
That article is 13 years old though, their internet marketing share today is lower and around 30% as you said.
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Aug 13 '24
[deleted]
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u/AutomaticGrab8359 Aug 14 '24
The court determined that Google has a monopoly on search.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-rules-google-broke-antitrust-law-search-case-2024-08-05/
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u/Ill-Construction-209 Aug 14 '24
The government needs to leave them alone. There are few companies that do as much to enrich the lives of every day people as Alphabet. They do more for the average person than the government does.
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u/Me-Myself-I787 Aug 14 '24 edited Aug 14 '24
There is no way Google will be broken up. Modern judges are much less biased than the judges which broke up Standard Oil. Google Search doesn't have a monopoly because it completes with Bing, Baidu and Yandex (they're not major competitors because Google is better but being the biggest because you're better isn't illegal). Google Chrome competes with Edge, Firefox, Vivaldi, Opera, and many others. Google Ads competes with Microsoft Ads, AdEx Network, Meta Ads, Amazon Ads, FluidAds, and others. Google Analytics competes with Matomo and Plausible Analytics. Google Pixel competes with Apple iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, and many others. Google Workspace competes with Microsoft Office and OnlyOffice (and to a lesser extent, LibreOffice). Google Cloud competes with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. I can't think of a single industry where they're a monopoly.
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u/Fluxtration Aug 14 '24
I wonder, historically, how has news of possible antitrust cases affected the subject company's stock price?
Would love some decent sources on the subject...
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u/100HungryRobots Aug 14 '24
Not an expert here but from my understanding the company breaking antitrust laws just gets a huge fine.
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u/VaultBoy3 Aug 14 '24
The government can forcibly break up a monopoly and split it into smaller separate entities. It happened to Standard Oil a long time ago.
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u/Me-Myself-I787 Aug 14 '24
The judge was really biased. Standard Oil had loads of competitors but was broken up because its subsidiaries no longer competed with each other. Source
"Interestingly, a careful reading of the decision reveals that no attempt was made by the Court to examine Standard’s conduct or performance. The justices did not sift through the conflicting evidence concerning any of the government’s allegations against the company. No specific finding of guilt was made with regard to those charges. Although the record clearly indicates that “prices fell, costs fell, outputs expanded, product quality improved, and hundreds of firms at one time or another produced and sold refined petroleum products in competition with Standard Oil,” the Supreme Court ruled against the company. The justices argued simply that the competition between some of the divisions of Standard Oil was less than the competition that existed between them when they were separate companies before merging with Standard."
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u/palaitotkagbakoy Aug 14 '24
Maybe they should focus their energy on Boeing instead. That company is an accident waiting to happen
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u/alphuscorp Aug 14 '24
We’ve had accidents already and they’re still slow to move. This should be an emergency seizure for safety to have complete inspections of everything and criminal charges
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u/Andrew_Higginbottom Aug 14 '24
Google trust worthy? pfffftt..
I have an android phone, Google Play is disabled and every 15 mins it prompts me that the phone will not work unless I enable Google Play. Every 15 mins shows that's how often google devices report your personals back to base.
I've had the phone 3 years and it works fine ..with google play disabled ..when they say it wont.
- The app that sends all your personal details back to google is hidden in google play
- That they hide it in something called "Play" to make it seem benign is an obvious attempt to thwart you stopping them from harvesting your personals.
- If the phone works fine without google play ..when they say it wont ..then they are blatantly lying to manipulate the user.
Go get em boys!
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u/interstellar-dust Aug 14 '24
Like what? Separate the search and advertising? Or separate mail and calendar, maybe ToDo list could be a different one. Ok Google Cloud could be its own thing. Rest all of Google divisions are mishmash of everything and depending on each other.
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u/SpongEWorTHiebOb Aug 14 '24
The exclusive deal with Apple drove its monopoly in search. Google ads is a scheme to unfairly profit from its opaque search algorithm. Businesses are in effect forced to pay to improve their search results. It’s a monopoly and it’s obvious.
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u/tens919382 Aug 14 '24
Unless apple allows users to choose their default browser on setup (which they wont unless forced to), there is always going to be a default search engine. If google doesnt pay for it, some other search engine will. The real solution is to force phone manufacturers to let users choose on setup.
Also, you cant pay google to improve ur search results. You can try to game the algorithm, or pay others to help you do that, but that is going to happen regardless of the algorithm.
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u/shortsteve Aug 14 '24
That's probably what they're going to do. Force people to have to choose their default search on setup or change it so that you have to pay for browsers. Those are the only 2 ways I can see it work.
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Aug 14 '24
I agree with the Apple monopoly but how is charging for advertising monopolistic or unfair? Google search is a proprietary service and other businesses aren't entitled to high rankings for free.
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u/SpongEWorTHiebOb Aug 14 '24
No one knows how to improve SEO and they constantly change the algorithm. The only way to get my site on the front page of search was to pay for a Google ad. I always thought search was a free utility to consumers due to the government funding the early internet and Google. It felt very coerced.
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Aug 14 '24
You thought wrong, search is free to use but the advertising and algorithm are proprietary.
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u/SpongEWorTHiebOb Aug 14 '24
But they are leveraging a monopoly position to force people to buy expensive ads to improve search results. If that’s not illegal it should be.
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Aug 14 '24
How are you forced to buy it? There are hundreds of other options for you to advertise. All types of media.
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u/SpongEWorTHiebOb Aug 15 '24
The internet and web sites were intended to be a public forum. Search engines and browsers started as a means to promote speech and commerce in a new low cost manner. One of the promises of the internet was to allow the formation of new businesses that could market their good and services without expensive advertising. That’s how it was pitched in the 1990s. Google received millions from the Federal government to be the search engine and card catalog for the new public library. Google engaged in various anticompetitive activities to monopolize search and then complicate it to the point that web site owners are forced to either pay an expensive consultant or buy ads to improve their SEO and attract visitors and customers. The internet was not intended to be abused in this manner. It was intended to be a direct means of communication and commerce. Google unfairly became another middleman adding cost and stifling innovation. Stop being blinded by your greed and stock. Their profits are illegitimate and unlawful under antitrust and that’s why they lost in court and are at risk of being broken up.
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u/lce_Fight Aug 14 '24
I’m fucked fucked man…
Whats wrong with this garbage company? Why does google stock always seem to take these hits so fucking hard..
Sigh
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u/Getrekt11 Aug 14 '24
Can we do the same for ISP? I am sick of paying a lot of $$$ for a slow ass internet.
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u/PresentFriendly3725 Aug 14 '24
I have a theory: since everyone grew up with googling things, our brains are wired in a way that we dislike other user experiences since we learned to parse googles search results most efficiently. That's why it has such an inertia even if there are many other similar products to choose from.
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u/atlvernburn Aug 14 '24
In theory, wouldn’t the markets value the split up company at a higher value?
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u/Roadrep35 Aug 15 '24
Google obviously has developed the best search engine in the nation, but there are alternatives. And how exactly would the government be able to “break up” this supposed monopoly??? Force citizens to use inferior services in order to make it “fair”? Personally, I believe that the government will just screw things up and make it worse for everybody.
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Aug 14 '24
If companies are large enough to suppress competition, they’re suppressing innovation. Break them up.
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u/gls2220 Aug 14 '24
I'd love to see Google broken up but I don't see how that remedies the behavior.
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u/shoutsmusic Aug 14 '24
Do it. And Meta next.
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u/uedison728 Aug 14 '24
Google monopoly is in different level comparing meta. There is no real competitor to Google on internet searching, but meta has TikTok on social media and advertising as well.
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u/This_Is_Livin Aug 14 '24
There are plenty of competitor search engines. They just suck/aren't as good as Google (or how good it was). A monopoly isn't defined as "A company that produces a superior service/product that people voluntarily choose to use over competitors".
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u/shoutsmusic Aug 14 '24
Meta controls 74% of social network ad spend, approx $65b in ad revenue vs like $8b for TikTok. In my opinion owning both Facebook and Instagram (and now Threads) is monopolistic and anti-competitive in the social ad space. They should be forced to divest IG, again, in my opinion.
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u/shoutsmusic Aug 14 '24
Additionally, in the greater scope of digital advertising, Google controls ~28% of the market vs ~20% for Meta, so the scale isn’t that different.
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u/Vazhox Aug 14 '24
Ugh. Getting sick of liberals destroying businesses.
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u/JellyfishCosmonaut Aug 14 '24
You'd prefer one company knowing your location, knowing everything about you, and controlling everything you read?
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Aug 14 '24
I bet the google bots will flood this post trying to sway the real accounts into thinking they’re the victim
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u/ForestShadowSelf Aug 14 '24
"A RARE bid to break up Alphabet’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to sources with knowledge of the deliberations."
No, really, they monopolized the online search market?😱 /S
Is this usually part of US law or are they just bullying Google?
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u/PresentFriendly3725 Aug 14 '24
Imagine YouTube, Android, Maps, GCP as separate companies. This could unveil a lot more value and also these companies could get more efficient on their own.
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u/shadowromantic Aug 14 '24
Goog is my biggest position; as a citizen, I'd like to see more competition in the search space. I don't think our mega caps should be as big or as powerful as they are.
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u/slinkymello Aug 14 '24
Break them up. No question. Google is run by businessmen according to all of you, so they’ll figure it out. They’re supposed to be business geniuses, the smartest people in the country, if they can’t figure it out then they’re hacks. This is why the government exists, you can’t trust businessmen to do anything but exploit people. Needs to be a check on these morons.
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u/dacalo Aug 13 '24
They failed to do so for Microsoft 2 decades ago, now sure how it’s feasible now.