The DOJ-Google Fight Comes Into Focus. Why It's Finally Hitting Alphabet's Stock
The U.S. Department of Justice has aggressively pursued Google as a monopolist in recent years, going back to the first Trump administration. And it's gotten a federal judge to rule in its favor.But the DOJ's full intentions weren't fully clear until late last night when the department filed specific remedies that it would like to see the U.S. District judge impose. The DOJ is out for a pound of flesh.An end to search payments: The payments that Google makes to be the default on mobile devices were at the heart of the DOJ's case. Most prominent among these are Google's payouts to Apple, which were pegged at $20 billion in 2022 during the trail. That number represented 16% of Google's cost-of-revenue. But they're also material to Apple, comprising 5% of its 2022 revenue. Assuming that stream of payments all falls to the bottom line, it would have been roughly 21% of Apple's net income that year.The ban goes beyond third-party payments. The DOJ has said it wants to stop Google from using