Google's journey from dorm to search and internet dominance: Check timeline

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

A US judge has ruled that Google illegally monopolised 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:

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 2000: 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 2005: Launches Google Maps for desktop.

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 2008: Debuts first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 or HTC Dream. Launches Google Chrome web browser.

January 2010: Launches smartphone, Nexus One, co-developed with HTC.

March 2010: Stops censoring search results in China, leading to its banning in the country.

October 2010: Google tests out its first self-driving 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 2016: Launches the first Pixel smartphone.

November 2016: Launches Google Home smart speaker.

June 2017: The European Commission fines Google 2.42 billion euros for violating the neutrality of its search.

February 2018: 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 2019: Announces acquisition of Fitbit for $2.1 2019 billion.

December 2019: Co-founders Page and Brin announce they are stepping down as CEO and president, respectively; Pichai becomes CEO of Alphabet.

2020: Alphabet hits $1 trillion in market capitalisation.

January 2023: The company cuts 12,000 jobs, or 6 per cent of its workforce.

February 2023:  Google announces Bard, a generative AI-powered 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.

June 2023: EU regulators say Google may have to sell part of its adtech business to address concerns about anti-competitive practices.

September 2023: The US Justice Department and a coalition of 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 2023: Google begins US trial with Epic Games over claims of violation of federal antitrust law.

December 2023: Google launches Gemini, its most powerful generative AI model at the time. 

January 2024: Samsung says it will use Google's Gemini large language models in its Galaxy S24 series smartphones.

 

February 2024: Google flags increased spending on servers for data centers, underscoring its hefty investments to power AI that will later raise investor concerns. 

February 2024: Google renames its Bard chatbot after the Gemini models that power it. 

February 2024: Nvidia snatches Goggle's spot as the third-most valuable US company, underscoring the AI shift across Big Tech.

February 2024: Google releases open source "Gemma" models, following in its AI competitor Meta Platforms' (META.O) footsteps. 

February 2024: Google pauses its AI tool that creates images of people, following inaccuracies in some historical depictions generated by the model, just weeks after first offering the service.

 

February 2024: Thirty-two media groups including Axel Springer and Schibsted (SCHA.OL) 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 US 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 US artists over AI image generator.

April 2024: Alphabet announces first-ever dividend.  June 2024: Google names Anat Ashkenazi as CFO.  October 2024: Google shifts Gemini app team to DeepMind.

November 2024: Google must sell Chrome to restore competition in online search, DOJ argues.  November 2024: Meta will face antitrust trial over Instagram, WhatsApp acquisitions

March 2025: Google defeats part of US 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: US 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: US judge finds Google's holds illegal monopolies in ad tech, paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.