On August 19, 2004, Google premiered on Wall Street, when the public market was still scraping from its head at what the firm can do. Fast forward after 15 Years—and over 200 acquirements later—Google has become a part of countless people’s everyday lives. But some regulators and politicians are now attempting to stem that power by constraining it to unwind some of those mergers. In the last month, the U.S. DOJ (Department of Justice) declared a broad antitrust evaluation of big-capitalization technology companies. Few months before that, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren planned a proposal that included striping Google’s acquisitions of Waze, Nest, and DoubleClick.
Warren wrote, “Google has smashed the ad company DoubleClick and the mapping firm Waze. Unwinding these unions will encourage a healthy competition in the market that will put a strain on big tech firms to be more responsive to user concerns, as well as about privacy.” Google bought DoubleClick in 2007 for $3.1 Billion and is the most evident target for antitrust concerns. Google purchased Israeli start-up Waze in 2013 for almost $1.1 Billion that has brought social traffic data, which helped Google Maps in predicting routes and travel times. Google bought smart home firm Nest for whopping $3.2 Billion in 2014. Ever since then it has transformed what was a smart thermostat product in Google’s home devices brand, which comprises smart lights, smart thermostats, and smart speakers. Previously in this year, regulators notified the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) about data privacy concerns.
Recently, Google was in news as its latest educational tool is helping teachers in becoming more efficient. “Google for Education” has transformed teachers’ lives much easier in the last few years, helping them to move towards a digitally-linked era with software like Google Classroom and G Suite for Education. The newly-publicized Google Assignments has plenty of new features, trying to help teachers by saving time when it comes to checking papers and grading.
