文件显示：The latest proposal indicates that the US Department of Justice is considering splitting up Google's business to weaken its monopoly position in the search market, but there are still difficulties from an operational perspective, and the final decision will be announced before August next year. Based on the average target price of the past 19 months, Google's stock price still has a 22% upside potential.
$Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ The initial proposal for the antitrust case's preliminary remedies has been released, and the plan to split is still under consideration.
According to Bloomberg's report today, the US Department of Justice submitted a proposal on the same day, indicating that the institution is considering requiring Google to sell part of its business to weaken the harm caused by the monopoly in the online search market.
Documents show:
"Considering taking action and structural remedial measures to prevent Google from using Chrome browser, Play, Android, and other products to let Google Search and related products and features (including AI and other emerging search access points and functions) surpass competitors or new entrants."
The document also mentions that the chief judge of the antitrust case, Amit Mehta, may also compel Google to open access to the underlying data used to build search results and AI products.
In addition, in this 32-page document, the Department of Justice includes "remedial measures" under consideration which also include:
Restricting Google from investing in (potential) competitors or potential competitors in the search engine market.
Requesting Google to allow websites to choose whether to use its AI products;
Requesting Google to provide more information to advertisers and control the placement of advertisements.
It is reported that the Department of Justice will provide a more comprehensive proposal for remedies next month. Once Google's split plan is implemented, this will be the largest corporate split event in the United States in forty years.
The difficulty of implementation of the split, Google's stock price may still have room to rise.
The U.S. government seems to want to demonstrate its determination against monopolies through the Google case.
On August 5th of this year, the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google illegally monopolized the online search market, violating U.S. antitrust laws. Mehta plans to try the proposed remedies next spring and announce the final decision by August 2025.
Last month, Jonathan Kanter, head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, also stated that early divestiture measures are necessary to end and repair the harm caused by long-term monopolies.
Google has already stated that they plan to appeal Mehta's decision.
However, from a practical perspective, splitting Google still poses certain difficulties.
Cornell University law professor Erik Hovenkamp stated:
"From a practical standpoint, it is extremely difficult to split out the odd... Judges view splitting as an extreme remedy, which may lead to unpredictable consequences. For example, the newly split company might be eliminated from the market.
With Google suffering a heavy blow in the antitrust case, is its stocks still worth buying?
Some analysis points out that over the past 19 months, Wall Street has set an average target price of $201.64 for Google, indicating that Google still has 21.7% upside potential compared to the current price.
Since the beginning of this year, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has accumulated a more than 18% increase in stock price.
Editor/Rocky
