Google stock jumps as judge rules Google doesn’t have to sell Chrome but must share data with rivals

Google stock is in focus after a US judge ruled that the company will not be forced to sell its Chrome web browser but must open parts of its search data to competitors, a decision aimed at limiting Google’s dominance of online search. The ruling by US District Judge Amit Mehta comes as Google’s parent company Alphabet has reached a market value of about $4 trillion, underpinned by investor confidence in its fast-growing artificial intelligence and cloud computing businesses.

The court found that Google’s search engine had been operated as an illegal monopoly but rejected calls to break up the company, instead ordering targeted changes to how its search data and commercial agreements are handled. The ruling means Google will remain structurally intact while being required to give rivals access to key information used to improve search quality and AI models. This is reported by San Francisco News editorial team, citing abcnews and the US federal court ruling.

Google doesn’t have to sell Chrome but must share data with rivals

The judge ruled that Google may keep Chrome, its widely used web browser, after concluding that there was not enough evidence that the product itself was essential to Google’s monopoly in search. However, Google must now allow competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing, DuckDuckGo and AI-based search services including Perplexity and OpenAIto access parts of its search index and query data. These datasets, built from trillions of searches over more than two decades, are used to train artificial intelligence systems and to improve how search engines rank and answer queries. The ruling also limits Google’s ability to enter contracts that prevent competing services from appearing on smartphones, computers and digital assistants, although the company will still be allowed to pay manufacturers and software companies, including Apple, to remain the default search engine on their devices. Those agreements generate more than $26bn a year for Google’s partners, including more than $20bn paid to Apple.

What the ruling means for Alphabet, investors and Silicon Valley

Investors reacted positively to the ruling, interpreting it as a sign that Google avoided the most disruptive regulatory outcome. Alphabet shares rose more than 7% in after-hours trading, adding close to $200bn to the company’s market value. Apple’s shares also rose after the decision preserved its lucrative search partnership with Google. The ruling comes at a time when Alphabet has joined the $4 trillion market-capitalisation club, driven by growth in Gemini AI, Google Cloud and autonomous vehicle unit Waymo. For Silicon Valley, where Google is one of the region’s largest employers and technology investors, the decision provides stability for thousands of engineering jobs, data centres and start-ups built around Google’s AI and cloud ecosystem, while allowing new competitors to gain access to data that could support the next generation of search and AI products.

Key points of the court decision

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