How to Break Up Google

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 22, 8:30AM EDT

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According to several media reports, Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor and a likely Republican presidential candidate, wants to break up Google or its parent Alphabet. He is part of a long line of politicians and legislators who want companies like Microsoft and Amazon to be several smaller companies and not one. (Here are the industries laying off the most workers.)
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Politico reports, “In previously unreported comments made in 2021, DeSantis said technology companies like Google ‘should be broken up’ by the U.S. government.” There is precedent for this, although it is from decades ago. The federal government forced a breakup of AT&T in 1982. In 2000, there was an unsuccessful attempt to split Microsoft into two pieces.
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Alphabet does have several discrete businesses that do not have to be part of the whole. The first is the Google search engine, which has 90% of the U.S. market. Another is YouTube, the largest video content destination in America. About 62% of internet users visit YouTube every day.
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Alphabet also has a hardware division, which includes its smartphone and smartwatch operations. Its Chrome browser is among the most used in America and worldwide. Chrome could be broken out easily. Google does not need it for Alphabet to be successful. Google’s AdSense product is also the largest in the sector. Google’s Android OS has only one competitor: Apple’s iOS.

Gmail is among the most widely used email systems in the world. MapQuest is similarly popular.
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How would a breakup look? Obviously, Google would be its own company. The same is true for YouTube. There could be a “products” division that would house Google’s ad sales business, its browser, Android OS, maps, and email.

Breaking up Alphabet would not be a simple job, but it could be done.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.