Alphabet Shares Surge After Antitrust Ruling

New York, September 3, 2025 - Shares of Alphabet Inc. (ticker: GOOG) jumped sharply on Wednesday after a U.S. federal judge issued a landmark ruling in the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, concluding that the company would not be required to divest its Chrome browser or Android operating system.

In premarket trading, Alphabet’s stock climbed as much as 7% following Judge Amit Mehta’s decision, which rejected the most severe remedies sought by the DOJ, including forced sales of core products. Instead, the court ordered Google to share certain search data with competitors and barred the company from entering into exclusive agreements that tie payments or licensing to distribution deals. Google may continue compensating partners such as Apple-currently receiving roughly $20 billion annually-to preload Google Search and Chrome, but must avoid long-term exclusive contracts.

Investors welcomed the ruling as a significant win for both Google and its partners. “This is a decisive ruling that alleviates a major concern for the stock,” noted Dan Ives, head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, who raised his price target for Alphabet to $245. Apple Inc. shares also gained nearly 3% in early trading, buoyed by the preservation of its lucrative default-search arrangement with Google.

Judge Mehta emphasized that while Google’s dominant market position in search constitutes an unlawful monopoly, the connection between its market power and the alleged anticompetitive conduct did not justify radical structural relief such as divestiture of Chrome or Android. The judge found that divestment would inflict “substantial- in some cases, crippling- downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets and consumers” and that divestiture was a “poor fit” for remedying the identified conduct.

The ruling marks a pivotal moment in the multiyear antitrust battle over Big Tech’s market practices. Google was first sued in September 2023, and last year the court ruled that the company unlawfully maintained its monopoly in general search services. The remedies phase, which concluded this week, determines how Google must alter its distribution practices to restore competition.

Analysts caution that broader regulatory scrutiny remains active. Other antitrust actions and ongoing investigations into Google’s advertising business could lead to additional enforcement measures. Nevertheless, Wednesday’s decision provides a near-term reprieve for Alphabet, underpinning optimism about the resilience of its core search and advertising franchises amid intensifying competition from AI-driven rivals such as Perplexity and OpenAI.

The wider market also responded positively, with Nasdaq-100 futures up 0.7% and the S&P 500 futures rising 0.5% on Wednesday morning, driven in part by the tech sector’s strength. All eyes now turn to upcoming economic data-including Friday’s August jobs report-and to how Google integrates required data-sharing measures while safeguarding user privacy and platform performance.