It’s innovative, it generates huge wealth, and it offers great products for completely nothing. The lobbyists for Alphabet, the parent company of Google, will make plenty of familiar arguments about why the internet giant should be left intact. And yet, as the US Department of Justice pushes for it to be broken up, it is going to be hard to convince anyone it can carry on as it is. In reality, breaking up Google may be the best thing that has happened to the tech industry in years – and it is long overdue.
It promises to be a long and bitter fight, and Google certainly has the resources to oppose it all the way. And yet, with the courts now agreeing that it is, in fact, a monopoly, and with the Justice Department now proposing ‘structural remedies’ (polite legal speak for a break-up), splitting the company up looks more likely than ever.
A series of Baby-Googles – perhaps Search, Android and Media – would create three huge new companies
Sure, with its massive $2 trillion market value, investors will be very nervous about that.
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