The day Google was Born: 27 years on, facing monopoly ruling and service woes
4 September 1998 marked the founding of Google Inc., a company that began in a California garage and went on to redefine how billions of people access information. Today, 27 years later, the company faces renewed scrutiny over its dominance — even as a global outage briefly reminded the world just how reliant we have become on Google’s services.
From Stanford project to global giant
Google began life as a research project by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Their search engine, initially called BackRub, introduced a new way of ranking web pages based on their links.
By September 1998, they had incorporated Google Inc. in Menlo Park, operating out of a friend’s garage. The name itself was a play on “googol” — the number 1 followed by 100 zeros — reflecting their mission to organise vast amounts of information.
Over the following decade, Google rapidly expanded:
- 2000: AdWords launched, transforming online advertising.
- 2004: The company went public on NASDAQ.
- 2006–2008: Google acquired YouTube, introduced Chrome, and rolled out the Android mobile operating system.
- 2015: Google became part of holding company Alphabet Inc., underscoring its expansion beyond search into everything from self-driving cars to artificial intelligence.
Today, Google products such as Search, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Drive reach billions of users globally.
How Google monopolised the search market
Google dominates the search engine industry, with market share often exceeding 90% worldwide. That dominance was cemented by three key strategies:
- Superior technology: PageRank and subsequent AI-driven improvements produced faster, more relevant results.
- User simplicity: A clean homepage and consistent reliability built trust.
- Default agreements: Contracts with browser makers and smartphone providers (most notably Apple’s Safari) ensured Google was the default search engine for millions of users.
While these tactics secured Google’s place as the gateway to the internet, they also attracted growing antitrust scrutiny.
Landmark antitrust ruling in the US
Last week, US District Judge Amit Mehta delivered a long-awaited ruling in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Google.
The court found Google guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly in search and ordered the company to:
- End exclusive agreements that make Google the default search engine on devices and browsers.
- Share parts of its search index and anonymised user-interaction data with rivals, to encourage competition.
However, the judge stopped short of forcing Google to spin off major assets such as Chrome or Android.
The reaction was mixed:
- Investors celebrated, pushing Alphabet’s share price up nearly 9%.
- Critics condemned the decision as a “slap on the wrist”, warning it will do little to reduce Google’s power.
- The court itself noted that emerging AI-powered competitors, such as OpenAI and Perplexity, could reshape the search market more effectively than regulation alone.
Google may still appeal, and separate cases targeting its online advertising business are ongoing.
Today’s global outage
As if to underscore both Google’s reach and its fragility, millions of users across Turkey, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Germany, and parts of Eastern Europe experienced a widespread outage this morning.
Between 07:00 and 08:00 GMT, services including YouTube, Gmail, Search, Maps, Drive, and Analytics were disrupted. Turkey’s national cybersecurity authority has asked Google for a technical explanation. Most services have since been restored.
Looking Ahead
From a humble garage in 1998 to a trillion-dollar multinational in 2025, Google’s journey has been extraordinary. Yet today’s developments — both in the courts and in its infrastructure — highlight a company at a crossroads.
- Legal pressure may force Google to rethink its partnerships and business practices.
- Technological disruption, particularly from AI competitors, threatens its long-held dominance.
- Service reliability remains crucial, with outages revealing the vulnerabilities of a world so dependent on one company.
As Google marks another anniversary, its future will likely be shaped as much by regulators and rivals as by its own innovations.
Also read: Google’s AI previews erode the internet, US edtech company says
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Featured photo source: Kim Kulish, Corbis Historical, Getty Images
With information from: Reuters, The Guardian, Investors.com, About Google
