GOOG - Alphabet Inc.
1,151.00 -2.58 (-0.22%)
After hours: 7:59PM EDT
| Previous Close | 1,150.34 |
| Open | 1,146.00 |
| Bid | 1,147.26 x 800 |
| Ask | 1,151.70 x 800 |
| Day's Range | 1,145.00 - 1,158.50 |
| 52 Week Range | 970.11 - 1,289.27 |
| Volume | 1,222,664 |
| Avg. Volume | 1,551,988 |
| Market Cap | 800.925B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 0.99 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 28.94 |
| EPS (TTM) | 39.86 |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | N/A |
| 1y Target Est | 1,275.00 |
- Yahoo Finance Video•5 hours ago
Big tech antitrust hearing in focus
It was a big day in Washington for the top names in Tech. Yahoo Finance Tech Editor Dan Howley joined 'The Final Round' to discuss.
- Yahoo Finance Video•7 hours ago
Sen. Sherrod Brown: Facebook should not be the new Central Bank for the world
Facebook defending its crypto plans on Capital Hill amid concerns regarding regulation. Yahoo Finance's Seana Smith and Jess Smith and Applico CEO & Portfolio Manager of WisdomTree ‘PLAT’ ETF Alex Moazed discuss.
- Yahoo Finance Video•9 hours ago
Billionaire investor Peter Thiel accuses Google of China ties, Trump to investigate claims
Google fired back saying the company does not work with the Chinese military. Yahoo Finance's Zack Guzman & Heidi Chung discuss with Okta co-founder & COO Frederic Kerrest.
- Engadget•15 hours ago
Another employee behind the Google Walkout has left the company
One of the leaders of a mass walkout last year in protest of Google's handlingof sexual misconduct cases has left the company, Bloomberg reports
- TechCrunch•23 hours ago
Meredith Whittaker, AI researcher and an organizer of last year's Google walkout, is leaving the company
Meredith Whittaker, founder of Google’s Open Research Group and one of theleaders of last year’s employee walkouts, is leaving the company
- MarketWatch•49 minutes ago
Tech’s day of reckoning on Capitol Hill was long and harsh
Tech’s day of reckoning Tuesday on Capitol Hill started with skepticism about Facebook Inc.’s proposed digital currency, and ended with a spirited debate over charges of anti-conservative bias on Alphabet Inc.’s Google search. In between, the industry’s big four took some body blows from both political parties.
- Financial Times•2 hours ago
Google activist Meredith Whittaker leaves company
at Google has left the company, underlining a deepening rift between management and workers over issues ranging from sexual harassment to the potential risks of AI. Meredith Whittaker, an artificial intelligence researcher, said she had left to work full-time on AI ethics and to focus on “organising for an accountable tech industry — and it’s clear Google isn’t a place where I can continue this work”.
- Bloomberg•4 hours ago
Google is Starting to Back off From China, a U.S. Senator Says
(Bloomberg) -- Google’s chief executive officer told U.S. Senator Mark Warner that the company has ended some partnerships in China, the lawmaker said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television.The search giant’s ties to China were in the spotlight this week after technology investor Peter Thiel suggested on Sunday that the U.S. government probe Google’s “seemingly treasonous” work. President Donald Trump said he wanted the U.S. attorney general to look into the claims.Google pulled its search engine from mainland China in 2010. But the company began developing a separate prototype Chinese search service as early as 2016. Reports of the project, called Dragonfly, surfaced shortly after Google nixed a U.S. military contract, drawing criticism from the Pentagon and U.S. politicians from both parties. Earlier this year, Google said it had moved staff off of Dragonfly, and on Tuesday Karan Bhatia, Google’s policy chief, said the project was “terminated.”Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, didn’t specify what projects he discussed with Google CEO Sundar Pichai. A spokeswoman for the senator said they spoke about a “range of partnerships.”“I do think there’s some explaining that Google needs to make,” Warner said in an interview with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.” “I’ve met with the Google CEO. He said they are backing out of some of those partnerships, and they’re willing to work with the U.S. government.”A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on Warner’s interview.In January 2018, Google parent Alphabet Inc. signed a deal with Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. to cross-license technology and intellectual property. Google was also in talks with Tencent and several other Chinese firms about bringing its cloud services to China, Bloomberg News has reported. Google has a research partnership with Beijing’s Tsinghua University.In a speech on Sunday, Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member, raised the question of whether Google’s management was “infiltrated” by foreign intelligence agencies. On Monday, the company said it has never worked with the Chinese military.“I think that Mr. Thiel and Mr. Trump’s statements are a little over the top,” Warner said.To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.net;Emily Chang in San Francisco at echang68@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Anne VanderMeyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•4 hours ago
Amazon Comes Under Fire as Lawmakers Grill Tech on Competition
(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. was challenged by a top House lawmaker over whether the online retail giant is harming competition as the biggest tech companies faced their harshest antitrust scrutiny in years on Capitol Hill.Democratic Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who chairs the House antitrust panel, put Amazon on the hot seat at a hearing Tuesday, suggesting its business model suffers from conflicts of interest and that it can use its control over data to thwart competition from third-party sellers on its platform.“You are selling your own products on a platform you control and they’re competing with products from other sellers,” Cicilline said.Amazon lawyer Nate Sutton denied the company uses data it collects on sales to favor its own products over third-party sellers. He also argued that it’s common in the retail industry for stores to sell their own brands that compete against others.Cicilline fired back: “The difference is Amazon is a trillion-dollar company that runs an online platform with real-time data on millions of purchases and billions in commerce and can manipulate algorithms on its platform and favor its own product -- that is not the same as a local retailer,” he said.The exchange, as Amazon’s Prime Day sales event extended into a second day, came at hearing where four of the biggest U.S. tech firms -- Amazon, Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc. -- defended their businesses against criticism that they are too dominant. The session marked the first time the companies have faced grilling from Congress about whether they are hindering competition.Cicilline said his inquiry is still in the fact-gathering stage but the series will eventually lead to legislative steps that go beyond self-regulation.“I think it will absolutely require some action by Congress, either by way of regulation, new statutory enactments, new resources for antitrust agencies, more likely a combination of those three things,” he told reporters after the executives testified.Cicilline is bearing down on the companies as antitrust enforcers prepare their own scrutiny after a mostly hands-off approach to the industry.The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which share antitrust jurisdiction, have taken the first steps toward investigating conduct by the biggest companies by divvying up oversight with the Justice Department taking responsibility for Google and Apple, and FTC overseeing Facebook and Amazon.A report by the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center this year found that digital markets tend to be winner-take-all in which one firm comes to dominate. That creates an incentive for the companies to edge out new challengers that could threaten that dominance.Republican Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin on Tuesday cautioned against calls for breaking up the big technology companies.“Just because a business is big doesn’t mean that it is bad,” he said. Antitrust laws “do not exist to punish businesses just because they are big.”All four companies repeatedly insisted that they face abundant competition, from one another and from other companies. Although Amazon controls about half of U.S. e-commerce sales, Sutton pointed out the company makes up just 4% of all retail sales, with competition from Walmart Inc. and Kroger Co., among others. Facebook’s Director of Public Policy Matt Perault pointed to competition from Apple, Amazon and Google, among others.That argument met with skepticism from lawmakers. Representative Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, pointed out that Facebook has the most monthly active users worldwide of any social media platform, with its Instagram, Whatsapp, and Facebook messenger in the top six.“You can understand the skepticism because when a company owns four of the largest six entities measured by active users in the world in that industry, we have a word for that, and that’s monopoly – or at least monopoly power,” he said.\--With assistance from Daniel Stoller.To contact the reporters on this story: David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net;Ben Brody in Washington, D.C. at btenerellabr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Skift•5 hours ago
Google to Congress: We’re Not a Travel Monopoly
If you run a hotel, airline, or online travel agency, and you thought you needed to buy advertisements in Google search or Google Trips, then guess again — it's probably not as essential as you have long believed because consumers begin their travel searches with "specialist competitors." That's the conclusion travel executives might erroneously make […]The post Google to Congress: We're Not a Travel Monopoly appeared first on Skift.
- MarketWatch•5 hours ago
G-7 finance chiefs to tackle cryptocurrency risks, digital tax at Paris summit
Finance officials from the Group of Seven rich democracies will weigh risks from new digital currencies and debate how to tax tech companies like Google and Amazon when they meet at a chateau north of Paris starting Wednesday.
- Bloomberg•5 hours ago
Facebook Denies App Changes to Avoid Breakup: Antitrust Update
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. technology giants are headed for their biggest antitrust showdown with Congress in 20 years as lawmakers and regulators demand to know whether companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. use their dominance to squelch innovation. The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee is holding a hearing Tuesday on the market power of the largest tech companies. Executives from Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Google and Facebook are testifying. Here’s the latest from the committee room:Facebook Denies Its Integration Plan Designed to Thwart Breakup (5:37 p.m.)Facebook’s Matt Perault denied that the company’s planned integration of its Messenger app, its WhatsApp chat service and its Instagram photo app was designed to thwart calls to break up the properties.“There are many services in the market that offer more privacy-protective services,” he told Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “Our pivot toward privacy with respect to inter-operating our services was because of the competition that we faced in the market.”Raskin had suggested the announcement was a “ploy” and said it coincided with growing calls to break up Facebook by splitting off WhatsApp and Instagram.Democrat David Cicilline, who chairs the panel, also asked Amazon lawyer Nate Sutton about reports that the fees merchants must pay have been increasing in recent years.“Aren’t these steady fee hikes by Amazon a pure exercise of its outsize buyer power?” Cicilline asked.Sutton said that the estimates weren’t accurate.“The fees that are necessary to be paid in our store to sell items have actually been steady for a number of years and slightly declining,” Sutton told Cicilline.Heated Exchange Over Amazon’s Third-Party Sellers (4:32 p.m.)Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who is chairing the hearing, pressed Amazon on whether its business model suffers from a conflict of interest because it sells its own products that compete directly against those from third-party sellers. That is a complaint also raised by Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.“You are selling your own products on a platform you control and they’re competing with products from other sellers,” Cicilline said.Amazon lawyer Nate Sutton said it’s common in retail for stores to sell their own brands that compete against others.Cicilline fired back: “The difference is Amazon is a trillion-dollar company that runs an online platform with real-time data on millions of purchases and billions of commerce and can manipulate algorithms on its platform and favor its own product -- that is not the same as a local retailer,” he said.Cicilline repeatedly pressed Sutton about whether the company uses data on the third-party sellers to advantage its own products. Sutton said Amazon ranks results by the same criteria and doesn’t use data to compete against sellers.“You do collect enormous data,” Cicilline said. “You’re saying you don’t use that in any way to promote Amazon products, and I remind you sir, you’re under oath.”Cicilline says companies have de facto ‘immunity’ (3:38 p.m.)Cicilline slammed the dominance of the tech companies, saying they are shielded from competitive threats because of barriers to rivals that could potentially take them on. They also use their resources to prevent startups from challenging them and pose a risk to small businesses, he said.Cicilline said the dominance of tech companies stems from policy choices. Antitrust enforcers haven’t challenged a single one of their acquisitions or sued them for anticompetitive conduct like they did with Microsoft Corp. 20 years ago, he said.“Congress and antitrust enforcers allowed these firms to regulate themselves with little oversight,” Cicilline said in his opening remarks. “As a result, the internet has become increasingly concentrated, less open, and growingly hostile to innovation and entrepreneurship.”“Together, these enforcement decisions have created a de facto immunity for online platforms,” Cicilline added.Companies argue they face widespread competition (2:56 p.m.)The four tech giants tried to head off criticism that they dominate their respective markets, as executives in prepared testimony all cited intense competition they say they face from rivals.Nate Sutton, a lawyer for Amazon, which controls about half of U.S. e-commerce sales, told the House antitrust panel that the company makes up just 4% of U.S. retail sales, with competition from Walmart Inc. and Kroger Co.Facebook’s Director of Public Policy Matt Perault pointed to competition from Apple, Amazon and Google, among others, in his remarks.The companies also touted their development of innovative products that have won over consumers and their investment in research and development. Google’s director of economic policy, Adam Cohen, said the company spent $21.4 billion on R&D, three times more than in 2013.The hearing, led by Cicilline, started at about 3 p.m. Dozens of people were waiting in line to get into the hearing room.Here’s What Tech Faces in Washington:The hearing is one of a several that big tech companies face this week in Congress as Washington calls the giants to task for a range of concerns. President Donald Trump is pressuring the companies in Twitter barrages for issues including anti-conservative bias, while the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have taken the first steps toward investigating their conduct. The Justice Department is taking responsibility for scrutiny of Google and Apple, as the FTC oversees Facebook and Amazon.Also on Tuesday, David Marcus, who leads Facebook’s Libra and block chain efforts, heard from disdainful Democrats at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the company’s proposed cryptocurrency.Trump said Tuesday morning that his administration will look into allegations by billionaire Peter Thiel that Google’s work with China is “seemingly treasonous.”Trump has also said he wants gather tech executives at the White House.Google’s global public policy chief is scheduled to testify Tuesday before a Senate hearing focused on allegations the company engages in censorship.More on tech and antitrust: Did Big Tech Get Too Big? U.S. Joins Europe in Asking: QuickTakeTo contact the reporters on this story: David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net;Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Molly SchuetzFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•6 hours ago
Google Protest Leader Leaves, Warns of Company's Unchecked Power
(Bloomberg) -- Meredith Whittaker, who helped lead employee protests at Google over the search giant’s military work, artificial intelligence and policies, is leaving the company.In a blog, she warned that the internet giant’s AI software and huge computing resources are helping it expand in unsettling ways."Google, in the conventional pursuit of quarterly earnings, is gaining significant and largely unchecked power to impact our world (including in profoundly dangerous ways, such as accelerating the extraction of fossil fuels and the deployment of surveillance technology)," she wrote in a blog on Tuesday. "How this vast power is used — who benefits and who bears the risk — is one of the most urgent social and political (and yes, technical) questions of our time."Whittaker helped spark a broader uprising among workers at some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. They are concerned these corporations are gaining too much power through AI-powered, machine-based decision making that has flaws and little or no accountability.Over the past year, some staff at Google erupted in protest, prompting the company to drop a Pentagon AI contract and a censored search project in China. Whittaker, who led Google’s Open Research group, was one of the most outspoken voices. She was one of six women who organized massive walkouts after reports that Google paid handsome sums to executives accused of sexual harassment.Other Google protesters were saddened by Whittaker’s resignation, but hopeful that their attempts to hold large tech companies accountable will continue."Our movement has moved into a new phase," said Irene Knapp, a senior software engineer at Google. "Those of us who remain at the company have been focused on disseminating knowledge and teaching our organizing skills to new people. I am sure that Meredith would not be leaving if she didn’t know that she’s accomplished that, and I know that I very much feel she has. We’re set up for the long haul."While at Google, Whittaker also served with AI Now, a research institute at New York University that she co-founded. The group often criticizes businesses and government agencies for using AI systems, like facial recognition, in policing and surveillance. Whittaker also publicly denounced some Google decisions, including the appointment of Kay Coles James, a conservative think tank leader, to an AI ethics board. Google soon nixed the board."People in the AI field who know the limitations of this tech, and the shaky foundation on which these grand claims are perched, need to speak up, loudly. The consequences of this kind of BS marketing are deadly (if profitable for a few)," Whittaker wrote on Twitter on Sunday.In April, about six months after the big employee walkout, Whittaker and another protest leader, Claire Stapleton, said the company was retaliating against them for their role in the activity. In an email to colleagues, Whittaker said her Google manager told her to "abandon [her] work on AI ethics" and blocked a request to transfer internally. At the time, Google denied it retaliated against Whittaker.To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.net;Joshua Brustein in New York at jbrustein@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew PollackFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- MarketWatch•7 hours ago
House Judiciary Committee presses Big Tech on anti-competitive behavior
Tech’s grilling on Capitol Hill intensified Tuesday afternoon when a House Judiciary Committee took aim at four of its biggest players, whom chairman Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., called “powerful online gate keepers.”
- MarketWatch•7 hours ago
Trump turns up trade pressure on China as he threatens Google probe
President Donald Trump on Tuesday turned up fresh pressure on China over trade with the U.S., as he vowed to “take a look” into allegations that Google’s work with Beijing is treasonous.
- TheStreet.com•7 hours ago
[video]Google Exec: No Plans to Enter Chinese Search Market
Google confirmed that it ended a project aimed at introducing a censored search engine in China during a day of multiple Congressional hearings focused on the influence of Big Tech.
- Reuters•8 hours ago
Starting with Netflix, FANG reports to test Wall Street rally's mettle
A wave of quarterly reports from Netflix and other top-tier, high-growth companies starting on Wednesday will test Wall Street's willingness to extend a recent really driven by expectations of lower interest rates. Facebook , Amazon and Google-owner Alphabet , all part of the so-called FANG group of widely held stocks, have jumped over 5% so far in July, with investors increasingly willing to bet on the volatile names thanks to expectations the Federal Reserve will cut rates later this month by as much as half a percentage point to support economic growth. The FANG companies, combined with investor favorites Apple and Microsoft , account for about 17% of the S&P 500's $26 trillion market capitalisation, making reaction to their quarterly results key to Wall Street sentiment.
- CBS News Videos•5 hours ago
Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google execs testify on Capitol Hill
Leaders from Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon all took turns publicly defending their companies during an antitrust hearing on Capitol Hill. They said their platforms all rely on a vibrant social ecosystem that encourages competition, but lawmakers voiced concerns about the growing power of big tech companies. CNET senior producer Dan Patterson joined "Red and Blue" with more.
