Antitrust campaigners are determined to prove that there is no such thing as too big to break up. On Tuesday, the US government suggested that Google — a $2tn company — could be split apart. This, according to the Department of Justice, is one way to put an end to its monopoly in online search.
If the recommendation is followed it will change the way the country thinks about the success of its biggest industry. The penalty is drastic. Google’s parent company Alphabet accounts for more than 4 per cent of the main S&P 500 stock market index. The last major US company ordered to break up was Microsoft in 2000 — and that bid failed. At the time it accounted for less than 3 per cent of the index.
The DoJ’s proposal shows how far the US government is willing to go to shift the balance of power in tech. Google is the first big loser in an industry-wide antitrust fight that has been brewing for years. If these sorts of penalties are meted out, the US tech industry will start to look very different. Big Tech could become Medium Tech.