Key insights
- Google is offering spam policy changes to address EU antitrust concerns related to its site reputation abuse policy. This follows an investigation under the Digital Markets Act. Needham also raised its price target on GOOG to $450, citing strong Q1 results and AI initiatives. The news has a slightly positive influence on US equities due to reduced regulatory risk and positive analyst sentiment.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is one of the top “blue chip” stocks that were suddenly on fire in April. Reuters reported on May 6 that, according to a European Commission document seen by it, Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google has offered to change its spam policy criticised by publishers in an attempt that may support it in averting an EU antitrust fine. This came after publishers complained about its site reputation abuse policy, which, according to Reuters, “targets the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse search rankings by taking advantage of the host site’s ranking signals, commonly referred to as parasite SEO”. This led to the European Commission opening an investigation under the Digital Markets Act in November as holder of the position of EU competition enforcer, aiming to manage Big Tech’s power.
It further reported that Google has proposed changes to comply with the DMA, which has given interested parties until next week to offer feedback, according to the document. In a separate development, Needham lifted the price target on Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) to $450 from $400 on April 30 and reiterated a Buy rating on the shares. It cited the company’s better-than-expected Q1 results, and also noted the management’s comments about collapsing the purchase funnel by using AI answers.
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a holding company with segments including Google Services, Google Cloud, and Other Bets. The Google Services segment operates various services and products, including Android, Google Maps, Google Play, Chrome, Search, and YouTube.
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