In recent years, $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$it can be said that it has been an "unfavorable period," as a key proposal for the four-year-long antitrust case with the USA Department of Justice has emerged.

According to a report from the Financial Times of the United Kingdom on the 21st, the court documents submitted by the USA Department of Justice on Thursday indicated that the department believes that by divesting the Chrome browser and Android operating system, it could effectively weaken Google's dominant position in the online search market. Affected by this news, Google's stock plummeted over 7% at one point, ultimately closing down 4.74%.

Interestingly, in the form 13f report at the end of the third quarter, long-term value investors Duan Yongping and Li Lu both similarly reduced their holdings in apple while maintaining a large position in google.

According to WhaleWisdom data, at the end of the third quarter, the H&H International Investment fund managed by Duan Yongping held about 0.84 billion USD of Google stocks, with a position weight of 5.12%, making it their third largest position; the Himalaya Capital Management fund managed by Li Lu held about 0.93 billion USD of Google stocks, with a position weight of 37.6%, making it their largest position.

Previously, at the 2019 Berkshire shareholder meeting, Buffett and Munger expressed their admiration for Google's business model and regretted not investing in Google sooner!

Buffett said he should have known Google's prospects earlier! After all, the advertising clicks for his auto insurance company Geico cost between 10 to 11 dollars each time to Google, stating that its business model can generate profits without increasing costs, which is truly impressive.

Overall, Google is not facing the Justice Department's enforcement for the first time, and value investors have a certain degree of recognition for its business model. How will the market evaluate the impact of this incident?

Google suffers a "heavy blow" from the Justice Department, while OpenAI seeks to enter the browser and search market amid the chaos.

Market analysts believe that if the proposal is ultimately accepted, Google will no longer be allowed to own a browser, and will not be able to re-enter the browser market for the next five years. Meanwhile, the Justice Department also requires Google to divest from investments in search engines, query-based AI products, and advertising technology within six months.

The Department of Justice also stated that Google should stop paying annual fees of billions of dollars to partners like Apple, to make its search engine the default option through contracts, which has become a core tactic for Google to dominate the search engine market.

This means that Google will no longer be able to monopolize large amounts of data resources, which are crucial for AI training, thereby limiting Google's AI training to some extent.

However, Google is naturally unwilling to back down and strongly opposes this proposal, stating that the Justice Department's demands are "shocking and overly aggressive."

Google believes that separating the Chrome browser and the Android operating system would harm consumers because these products are currently free, and Google uses them as a "loss-leading tool" to promote its search engine and advertising business. In particular, no other company can invest enough funds to maintain the security and competitiveness of the browser.

In addition, Google also stated that this requirement may seriously impact its investments in the field of AI, thereby weakening its global technological leadership position.

Meanwhile, on November 21st Eastern Time, according to The Information, OpenAI is considering launching a new type of browser, closely integrating it with the ChatGPT chatbot, making it more convenient and faster for users to search for information online. This indicates that OpenAI will directly challenge Google's dominance in the web search and browser market.

Moreover, OpenAI is also negotiating partnerships with companies engaged in travel, food, real estate, and shopping websites, aiming to add such intelligent search capabilities to their sites.

In response, technology researchers stated that OpenAI has a long way to go before truly launching a browser, as browser development is a complex and time-consuming process that requires ensuring user privacy is not compromised, as well as ensuring compatibility with other tools to compete in the market with existing browsers.

Goldman Sachs supports Google's mid-to-long term development, with nearly 80% of analysts giving a "buy" rating.

After the event unfolded, Goldman Sachs analysts immediately stated in a report released to clients that despite facing the threat of a breakup, they remain bullish on Google in the mid-to-long term.

Analysts stated: "We believe Google's current valuation has priced in significant negative factors, but we recognize that due to the uncertainty of the antitrust case, the valuation multiples investors are willing to pay may continue to be suppressed."

Barron's further pointed out that Google has maintained its leading position over the past two decades. Its advertising business's annual revenue has exceeded 250 billion dollars, and the Android system, as the world's most popular mobile operating system, has easily surpassed the user base of Apple's iPhone.

At the same time, following in the footsteps of Amazon and Microsoft, Google has also ventured into the cloud computing field, expecting this business to bring in 58 billion dollars in revenue next year; the Q3 2024 financial report shows that the application of AI technology has greatly propelled Google's cloud business. Furthermore, although it does not receive as much attention as TikTok, YouTube has become the world's largest content distribution platform, with users watching over one billion hours daily.

In addition, according to predictions from media investment and data service provider GroupM, by 2025, the growth rate of search advertising revenue will exceed 6%, which is an increase compared to about 5% in 2024, and it is expected that its average annual growth rate will remain at around 5% over the next ten years.

Other Wall Street institutions are also bullish on Google, with jpmorgan and Stifel maintaining shareholding ratings, targeting prices of $212 per share and $200 per share respectively. Baird and evercore ISI also believe that Google can outperform large cap, with target prices of $205 per share.

According to futubull, in the past three months, 36 analysts have rated Google, with over 80% giving a "buy" rating; at the same time, Wall Street's average target price for Google is predicted to be $210.25, indicating a 25% upside potential from the latest closing price.

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