Google’s free products help people and small businesses across America.

A city street with apartment buildings, a grocery store, florist and coffee shop, with various people walking or biking through the scene.

Overview

Americans choose products like Search, Gmail and Maps every day because they’re helpful. Past surveys have found these services provide thousands of dollars a year in value to the average American. We provide these tools to everyone for free.

Our products increase choice and expand competition. They level the playing field for small businesses everywhere — enabling them to sell their products, find customers, reduce their costs and, in difficult times, get back on their feet.

Our technologies help America maintain its competitive edge.

We are consistently one of the country’s top investors in research and development. We spent $39.5 billion on R&D in 2022, funding that went toward product improvements and ensuring that America continues to lead the world in cutting-edge technologies like generative AI and quantum computing.

In 2022, Google Search, Play, YouTube and Google advertising tools helped American businesses sell their goods and services in countries around the globe, generating over $701 billion in U.S. economic activity.

American antitrust law’s focus on helping consumers has been a key driver of innovation in the U.S. economy.

Antitrust law helps consumers by promoting competition, which helps keep prices low and product quality high. We operate across many highly competitive sectors where prices are free or falling and products are constantly improving.

For example, Google is just one player in a highly competitive advertising industry, and this competition has helped reduce online advertising costs.

In our earliest days, nearly 25 years ago, we said we were committed to building technology that significantly benefited the lives of people around the world. We still are.

Facts about Google and competition

Google’s free services

People have more ways to search for information than ever before — and increasingly this is happening outside the context of only a search engine.

Promoting Google Search

Like countless other businesses, we pay to promote our services. But in each case, consumers can and do easily access alternatives.

Ads on Google

American small businesses use Google advertising tools to reach customers faster and at lower cost.

Ad technology

The online advertising space is famously crowded, with thousands of companies working together and in competition with one another to power digital advertising across the web.

Investment in innovation

Our focus on continually improving our products means that our greatest source of innovation comes from extensive R&D.

Regulation

We support thoughtful regulation, and we have engaged with governments, other companies and NGOs on ways to promote good outcomes, encourage innovation and protect consumers.

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