Google

What it is

Google LLC is a US technology company headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the primary operating subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL, GOOG). Its core business is online advertising sold against Search, YouTube, and the Google Network, which together generate the majority of Alphabet's revenue. Google also operates Google Cloud, the third-largest cloud infrastructure platform globally by revenue, and develops consumer products including Android, Chrome, Gmail, and Google Maps. Alphabet is the holding structure for "Other Bets" including Waymo, a US robotaxi service, and Wing, a drone-delivery platform.

History

Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google in September 1998 as a Stanford University research project, incorporating it in Delaware. The August 2004 IPO priced at US$85 per share on Nasdaq. The AdWords auction system, launched in 2000, became the core revenue engine. Google acquired Android Inc. in July 2005, establishing mobile dominance, and bought YouTube for US$1.65 billion in October 2006. In 2015, Page and Brin restructured the business as Alphabet Inc., placing Google LLC beneath it as the primary operating subsidiary and isolating other projects in separate units. Sundar Pichai, who had run Chrome and Android, became Google CEO in August 2015. Page stepped back from Alphabet CEO in December 2019, with Pichai assuming both positions.

Current state

Alphabet employed 190,820 people as of December 31, 2025, and spent US$45.4 billion on share repurchases during the year under board-approved programs.

In the United States, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in August 2024 that Google is a monopolist in general search and search advertising under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The court found Google illegally paid billions of dollars annually to Apple, Samsung, and other device makers to secure default-search placement across phones and browsers. A remedies trial ran in May 2025; the US Department of Justice won significant remedies, with restrictions on the default-search payment arrangements that lock Google into roughly 90% of US web search queries.

The US Supreme Court ruled on June 29, 2026, in United States v. Chatrie that geofence warrants demanding location records from companies including Google constitute a Fourth Amendment search requiring a probable-cause warrant, narrowing law enforcement access to Google's Sensorvault location database. See 最高法院裁定地理围栏令状是违反宪法第四修正案的搜查行为.

In the European Union, Brussels is finalising a record Digital Markets Act penalty for search self-preferencing, with structural remedies, including mandated search-data sharing and equal Android access for rival AI assistants, expected by late July 2026. See 布鲁塞尔拟对谷歌开出DMA史上最大罚单，结构性救济措施随之临近. A Stockholm court separately ordered Google to pay 14.3 billion SEK (US$1.97 billion) in private antitrust damages to Klarna's PriceRunner unit on July 1, 2026, the first major private-damages award grounded in the EU Commission's 2017 Google Shopping finding. See 瑞典法院判令谷歌向Klarna/PriceRunner赔偿19.7亿美元，价格比较反垄断案落地.

Relationships

Through Google DeepMind, formed in April 2023 by merging Google Brain and the UK-based DeepMind unit, Google develops the Gemini model family and competes directly with OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic in large-language-model AI. The Google ships Gemini 3.5 Flash and managed agents in the API release extended Gemini into agentic and coding workflows. Google is also an active participant in the Model Context Protocol standard emerging in 2026, see Agent protocols harden: MCP goes stateless, A2A passes 150 orgs. The concurrent US and EU antitrust proceedings constrain how Google can bundle products, share data across services, and structure distribution deals.

What to watch

• The final US District Court remedies order: restrictions on default-search payments to Apple would cut a revenue-sharing arrangement worth billions of dollars annually and could reduce Google's mobile-search share.
• The EU Commission's DMA structural-remedies decision, expected around late July 2026, requiring search-data sharing on FRAND terms and equal Android access for rival AI assistants.
• The Swedish Market Court of Appeal's timeline for reviewing the US$1.97 billion PriceRunner damages award, with a final decision possible as late as 2028.
• Whether other European price-comparison services, including Idealo and Kelkoo, file follow-on private-damages actions based on the same 2017 EU Commission finding.
• Google Cloud and Gemini commercial performance in H2 2026 against OpenAI and Microsoft Azure.