Google's journey from dorm to internet dominance

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ruled that Google illegally monopolized digital advertising markets, paving the way for a break up of the internet empire that was started out of a Stanford University dormitory nearly 27 years ago.

Google's platform for advertisers, closely tied to the online search unit, is a core driver of its $300 billion-a-year advertising business that has been a key focus for the past 2-1/2 decades.

Here's a look at some milestones in the history of the tech giant, whose parent is now known as Alphabet :

YEAR EVENT

1995-1996 Larry Page and Sergey Brin meet at Stanford

University and create a search engine named

BackRub.

1998 The startup, now renamed Google, gets $100,000

in funding from Sun Microsystems co-founder

Andy Bechtolsheim.

1999 Google announces $25 million in funding from

Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins in its

very first press release, and officially

announces the term "Googlers" to the world.

June 2000 Google becomes the default search engine

provider for Yahoo, one of the most popular

websites at the time.

October Launches AdWords, the online advertising

2000 platform that would become core to Google's

business.

2001 Eric Schmidt is named Google's chief executive

officer and chairman of the board of

directors.

April 2004 Google announces it is testing the release of

Gmail, with up to 1GB of storage capacity.

August 2004 Launches initial public offering of roughly

19.6 million shares, at an opening price of

$85 per share.

February Launches Google Maps for desktop.

2005

August 2005 Acquires mobile startup Android.

Launches Google Talk instant messaging

service.   

2006 Buys online video service YouTube for $1.65

billion.

April 2007 Announces acquisition of web ad supplier

DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

May 2007 Introduces universal search that lets users

access search results across all content

types, like images, videos and news, at once.

September Debuts first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 or

2008 HTC Dream.

Launches Google Chrome web browser.

January Launches smartphone, Nexus One, co-developed

2010 with HTC.

March 2010 Stops censoring search results in China,

leading to its banning in the country.

October Google tests out its first self-driving

2010 vehicles with a small fleet of Toyota Prius

cars in California.

June 2011 Launches Google+ social networking service,

which was shut down in 2018.

August 2011 Announces acquisition of Motorola Mobility,

which includes Motorola's cellphone and TV

set-top box businesses, for $12.5 billion.

2012 Launches Google Glass.

2013 Announces acquisition of Israeli mapping

startup Waze for about $1 billion.

2014 Announces in January that it will acquire AI

firm DeepMind.

In the same month, announces a $3.2 billion

deal to buy smart thermostat and smoke alarm

maker Nest Labs.

2015 Announces plans to create a new publicly

listed company, Alphabet, which will house

Google and other units, including YouTube and

research and venture capital businesses.

Sundar Pichai named CEO of Google.

October Launches the first Pixel smartphone.

2016

November Launches Google Home smart speaker.

2016

June 2017 The European Commission fines Google 2.42

billion euros for violating the neutrality of

its search.

February Google reports full-year sales of over $100

2018 billion a year for the first time.

July 2018 The European Commission fines Google 4.34

billion euros for anti-competitive practices

with respect to its Android operating system.

March 2019 The European Commission imposes a 1.49 billion

euros fine for anti-competitive practices with

respect to the company's online advertising

business.

June 2019 Google announces acquisition of analytics

startup Looker for $2.6 billion.

November Announces acquisition of Fitbit for $2.1

2019 billion.

December Co-founders Page and Brin announce they are

2019 stepping down as CEO and president,

respectively; Pichai becomes CEO of Alphabet.

2020 Alphabet hits $1 trillion in market

capitalization.

January The company cuts 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its

2023 workforce.

February Google announces Bard, a generative AI-powered

2023 chatbot that can produce text content and

fetch information off the internet. However, a

factual error in the AI tool's demo tanks

Alphabet shares, erasing $100 billion from the

company's market capitalization.

Susan Wojcicki, one of Google's first

employees, steps down as YouTube CEO; Neal

Mohan replaces her.

March 2023 Begins rolling out Bard to some users.

EU regulators say Google may have to sell part

June 2023 of its adtech business to address concerns

about anti-competitive practices

September The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of

2023 state attorneys general begin a blockbuster

antitrust trial in Washington, alleging that

Google unlawfully abused its dominance in the

search-engine market to maintain monopoly

power

November Google begins U.S. trial with Epic Games over

2023 claims of violation of federal antitrust law

December Google launches Gemini, its most powerful

2023 generative AI model at the time

January Samsung says it will use Google's Gemini large

2024 language models in its Galaxy S24 series

smartphones

February Google flags increased spending on servers for

2024 data centers, underscoring its hefty

investments to power AI that will later raise

investor concerns

February Google renames its Bard chatbot after the

2024 Gemini models that power it

February Nvidia snatches Goggle's spot as the

2024 third-most valuable U.S. company, underscoring

the AI shift across Big Tech

February Google releases open source "Gemma" models,

2024 following in its AI competitor Meta Platforms'

footsteps

February Google pauses its AI tool that creates images

2024 of people, following inaccuracies in some

historical depictions generated by the model,

just weeks after first offering the service

February Thirty-two media groups including Axel

2024 Springer and Schibsted hit Google with a

2.1-billion-euro ($2.3 billion) lawsuit

alleging that they had suffered losses due to

its digital advertising practices

March 2024 A U.S. judge rules that Google must face

advertisers' proposed class action lawsuit

claiming that it monopolizes the ad exchange

market

March 2024 EU antitrust regulators open their first

investigations under the Digital Markets Act

into Google, Apple, Meta for potential

breaches of the landmark EU tech rules.

April 2024 Google sued by U.S. artists over AI image

generator

April 2024 Alphabet announces first-ever dividend

June 2024 Google names Anat Ashkenazi as CFO

October Google shifts Gemini app team to DeepMind

2024

November Google must sell Chrome to restore competition

2024 in online search, DOJ argues

November Meta will face antitrust trial over Instagram,

2024 WhatsApp acquisitions

March 2025 Google defeats part of U.S. shareholder class

action over digital advertising practices and

user privacy protections

March 2025 Alphabet signs its biggest deal ever, to buy

cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32 billion

March 2025 U.S. drops bid to make Google sell AI

investments in antitrust case

April 2025 Google faces 5 billion pound UK lawsuit for

allegedly abusing dominance in online search

April 2025 U.S. judge finds Google's holds illegal

monopolies in ad tech, paving the way for U.S.

antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its

advertising products

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa, Kritika Lamba, Meghana Khare, Jaspreet Singh and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai and Devika Syamnath)