1. Who They Are
Alphabet Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOGL), headquartered in Mountain View, California, is the parent of Google — the world's dominant search engine, digital-advertising platform, and, with YouTube, video platform. Ad revenue was $264.6 billion in 2024, roughly 76 percent of total revenue. CEO Sundar Pichai; co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin retain voting control. Both US federal antitrust cases brought against Google since 2020 ended in findings that it illegally maintained monopolies.
2. What the Book Documents
Project Nimbus (Chapters Six and Thirteen): the $1.2 billion Amazon–Google cloud and AI contract with the Israeli government supplying, in the book's words, "the data storage and processing power required for surveillance, intelligence, and real-time targeting." The book documents that roughly 400 Google and Amazon employees signed a letter refusing complicity, that Google forced out Ariel Koren, the employee who led that resistance — who said afterwards that Google "systematically silences Palestinian, Jewish, Arab, and Muslim voices" concerned about complicity — and that when engineers walked out in protest, the companies filmed, identified, and fired them (approximately 50 Google workers were fired following the April 2024 No Tech For Apartheid sit-ins).
The Digital Iron Curtain (Chapter Nine): suppression and control of information on Google and YouTube platforms during the Gaza war.
The Revolving Door (Chapter Seven): movement of personnel between Google and the national-security state, including Project Maven's origins.
3. Verified Fines, Judgments and Settlements (2020 – present)
| Date | Authority / Case | Amount | Basis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 5, 2024 | US v. Google — D.D.C., Judge Amit Mehta (search case, filed 2020) | Liability finding | "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly" — general search and search text ads (Sherman Act §2) | Remedies ordered Sept 2025; Final Judgment Dec 2025 (no Chrome/Android divestiture; default-contract limits, data disclosures); Google appealed to D.C. Circuit May 22, 2026; DOJ cross-appealing for stronger remedies |
| Apr 2025 | US v. Google — E.D. Va., Judge Leonie Brinkema (adtech case) | Liability finding | Illegal monopolization of publisher ad-server and ad-exchange markets | Remedies trial held Sept 2025; ruling on possible AdX divestiture pending as of mid-2026 |
| Sep 5, 2025 | European Commission (EU) — AT.40670 | €2.95 billion | Adtech self-preferencing: favoring its own exchange AdX in auctions run by its dominant ad server — the EU's second-largest antitrust fine ever | Google appealing; Commission also ordered structural conflict-of-interest remedies |
| 2018 → final 2026 | European Commission / EU courts | €4.34 billion, reduced to €4.125 billion | Android abuse: forcing phone makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome | Upheld by the Court of Justice of the EU — now the largest definitively enforceable EU antitrust penalty; Google's EU antitrust fines total roughly €11 billion |
| 2017 → final 2024 | European Commission / CJEU | €2.42 billion | Google Shopping self-preferencing against smaller European rivals | Upheld by the Court of Justice of the EU (final) |
| 2019 → 2024 | European Commission / EU General Court | €1.49 billion | AdSense exclusivity clauses | ANNULLED by the General Court on Sept 18, 2024, for insufficient proof of anticompetitive effects — reported in full under this project's full-record rule |
| Dec 2023 | Epic Games v. Google (N.D. Cal. jury) | Verdict against Google | Jury found Google Play an illegal monopoly (all 11 counts) | Affirmed by the Ninth Circuit (2025); Play Store opening remedies in force |
| Dec 2023 | US state AGs — Play Store consumer settlement | $700 million | Anticompetitive Play Store billing practices | Settled |
| Nov 2022 | 40 US state attorneys general | $391.5 million | Deceiving users about location tracking — then the largest multistate privacy settlement | Settled; the book's companion site covered the underlying AG allegations |
| May 2025 | Texas Attorney General | $1.375 billion | Unlawful tracking of location, incognito searches, and biometric data | Settled (source: Office of the Texas Attorney General announcement, May 9, 2025) |
Sources: LegalClarity consolidated case tracker (mid-2026) · Congressional Research Service on the search-case ruling · European Commission press release, €2.95B adtech fine · Goodwin analysis of the AdSense annulment · TechCrunch on the adtech fine and totals · CJEU Android final ruling coverage (July 2026)
4. Children, YouTube, and Other Open Matters
YouTube is a defendant across the social-media youth-harm litigation (federal MDL-3047 and state cases). In June 2026, YouTube settled, together with Snap and TikTok, the first school-district bellwether case, and settled in the first California state bellwether — see the Meta fact sheet for the litigation-wide record and sources.
US v. Google remedies enforcement: a five-member Technical Committee now oversees Google's compliance with the search-case Final Judgment; DOJ and Google are already disputing its data-access scope.
Japan's Fair Trade Commission issued its first-ever cease-and-desist order against Google (April 2025) over search-default arrangements on Android phones; India's Competition Commission has fined Google in earlier Android and Play billing decisions and continues scrutiny.
Project Nimbus: worker, shareholder, and human-rights pressure continues; the contract's role in the Gaza war is documented in Chapter Thirteen of the book.
5. Associations Noted in the Book
Sundar Pichai (CEO), Larry Page and Sergey Brin (controlling co-founders) are covered in separate executive fact sheets. Google's Nimbus partnership with Amazon, and the movement of its personnel into the defense-AI complex, are documented in the book; per this project's method, each company and person is profiled separately and stands on its own record.
Legal Disclaimer
This document is published as journalism and commentary in the public interest, protected as free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It compiles information from public records, court filings, government announcements, parliamentary and congressional investigations, and reporting by established news organizations, together with the documented first-person accounts and analysis published in the books No Ethics in Big Tech and Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof by Vahid Razavi.
Where a fine, judgment, or settlement is described, its status (paid, under appeal, overturned, or pending) is stated as reported by the issuing authority or by reputable press as of the verification date above. Allegations in open lawsuits and investigations are exactly that — allegations — and every party is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until a competent court rules otherwise. Where a company or executive has prevailed in court, that outcome is reported here as well, because the credibility of this project rests on stating the record in full. Opinions and characterizations drawn from the books are the protected opinion of the author. Corrections supported by documentation are welcome via NoEthicsInBigTech.com/contact.
Research Credit
Deep research, source verification, and document preparation for this fact sheet were performed by Claude, the AI assistant built by Anthropic, working under the direction of author Vahid Razavi. Every fine amount, case citation, and status line above was checked against the primary or press source listed beside it on the verification date. This is a living document; new rulings, fines, and investigations will be added as they are verified.