New York, January 16, 2026, 16:37 ET — After-hours
- Alphabet’s Class C non-voting shares (GOOG) dipped roughly 0.8% in after-hours trading.
- Google has sought to halt a court-mandated data-sharing fix in its U.S. search monopoly lawsuit.
- Attention turns to a potential YouTube-BBC deal brewing for next week, alongside Alphabet’s earnings report on Feb. 4.
Alphabet’s non-voting Class C shares dropped 0.8% to $330.34 in after-hours trading Friday. The decline came after Google asked a U.S. judge to delay an order forcing it to share data with rivals—including generative AI firms like ChatGPT creator OpenAI—while it appeals a ruling that brands it an illegal monopoly in online search. Google warned that complying now could reveal trade secrets it might not recover, even if it wins on appeal.
The filing comes at a tricky time for investors, with courts focusing on remedies—the solutions mandated after the monopoly ruling—rather than just the case’s basics. Data-sharing cuts deep in a business that runs on data, offering competitors a fresh avenue to enter.
Timing matters for Alphabet. With a long weekend coming up and a busy earnings season ahead, legal news tends to grab more attention when there’s little else new from the company on the tape.
U.S. stocks closed modestly higher ahead of the holiday, with the S&P 500 gaining 0.12% and the Nasdaq rising 0.09%. “The most important thing is the growth companies and the big technology companies,” said Bruce Zaro, managing director at Granite Wealth Management, noting investors shifted focus from banks to megacaps for cues. Reuters
YouTube is sending mixed messages. According to the Financial Times, the BBC is set to produce programmes exclusively for YouTube for the first time, with those shows eventually making their way to BBC iPlayer and Sounds. The paper suggests a deal could be finalized as soon as next week. The BBC declined to comment, and Google didn’t respond to requests for comment outside normal business hours, Reuters noted.
Earlier this week, Google pointed to a key bottleneck fueling the AI surge: power. “Transmission barriers are the number one challenge we’re seeing on the grid,” said Marsden Hanna, Google’s global head of sustainability and climate policy, during an event at the American Enterprise Institute. He noted that interconnection delays can stretch beyond a decade in certain areas. Reuters
Bloomberg also reported that Google is negotiating with Stonepeak-backed Radiate on a potential fiber-asset venture.
Alphabet plans to release its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings on Feb. 4, with an earnings call set for 1:30 p.m. PT, the company announced.
The risk here is clear-cut: the judge might reject Google’s request, causing the appeal to collapse. That would force Alphabet to surrender crucial data, which competitors could exploit to close in on its lead in search and AI. A pause wouldn’t resolve the issue either, and as the timeline drags out, the uncertainty weighs more heavily on the company’s valuation.
When markets reopen after Monday’s holiday, traders will be eyeing the judge’s next step on the data-sharing request along with any new information about YouTube’s content plans. Alphabet’s earnings report on Feb. 4 remains the next key event for GOOG.
