A world-changing word has a birthday: 25 years ago, the course was set for "google" to become a synonym for Internet search. It could have turned out differently. When Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin began developing a search engine in 1996, it was initially called Backrub - Rückenmassage in German. It was a playful reference to the pioneering basic idea that hits are more relevant if there are more links - backlinks - to them.

However, after just a few months, Page and Brin came to the conclusion that a successful search engine needed a catchier name. At times they favored "The Whatbox", as the well-known Silicon Valley journalist Steven Levy wrote in his book on the history of Google. One September day in 1997, however, one of Page's neighbors threw the term "Googol" into the room, the mathematical term for a 1 with 100 zeros. Page liked the word. According to legend, the roommate typed the wrong spelling of "Google" into the search for available domain names. It was still available - and within a few hours Google.com was taken by Page.

Google under "adult supervision"

However, it then took almost a year before Google was registered as a company on September 4, 1998 - in order to be able to cash a cheque for 100,000 dollars from Sun Microsystems co-founder Andreas von Bechtolsheim. The mission: to organize all the information in the world and make it accessible to everyone. The credo, which is no longer mentioned: "Don't be evil". First the servers were run from the student dormitory, and Page and Brin chose a garage in the heart of Silicon Valley as their first office. Their landlady, Susan Wojcicki, now runs the video subsidiary YouTube.

Page was the first CEO - but the investors were not comfortable leaving the fast-growing business to two founders who were not even 30 years old. So in 2001, the experienced manager Eric Schmidt was brought to Google as a kind of "adult supervisor". For ten years, until a mature Page took the helm again, the company's fortunes were steered by a kind of "troika". Although Schmidt was the CEO, the founders had the freedom, for example, to buy the start-up behind the now market-leading Android smartphone system without being asked, as he later recalled.

The early business model

Just as innovative as the search engine algorithm was the Google idea of how to earn money with it: with small ads in the vicinity of the hits - which match what the user is searching for. You only have to pay if the ad is actually clicked on, and the exact price is determined in an auction process.

With Google's size, billions can be made with such mini deals. Despite all the new activities that have been added, search ads are still the basis of Google's business - and that of the parent company Alphabet as a whole. In the last quarter, the parent company achieved a total turnover of around 69.7 billion dollars (69.7 billion euros), of which a good 56.3 billion dollars was advertising revenue from Google. Long-time Google boss Sundar Pichai also took over the management position in the parent company from Page.

Conflicts with media companies and web services

Even in the early years, it became clear that Google's ambitions were not limited to Internet search. True to the goal of organizing all the world's information, the company began scanning books on a large scale. This project was the first time the Google founders got a bloody nose with their do-gooder intentions. Authors and publishers saw their copyrights infringed and their business threatened, and took them to court. GoogleBooks then made slow progress.

Further conflicts followed. Media companies accused Google of destroying their business basis with the free distribution of news. Review services such as Yelp criticized the search engine for sucking in their content - leaving users stuck with Google. Price search engines saw themselves at a disadvantage.

Billions in fines for Google

EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has already cracked down three times: In 2017, there was a fine of 2.4 billion euros with the accusation of unfair competition in shopping search. This was followed in July 2018 by a record fine of 4.34 billion euros for Google's conduct in Android. Eight months later, Google was fined an additional 1.49 billion euros because, in the Commission's view, it had unlawfully obstructed other providers of search engine advertising in the "AdSense for Search" service. However, Google digested the amounts with ease.

After Europe, politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties in the USA are now also targeting Google when it comes to competition. Under then President Donald Trump, the US Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in October alleging that Google was illegally protecting its dominant position in internet searches and the associated advertising. The company rejects the allegations.

Fears about data protection also continue to arise: Does Google now know too much about its users? Almost a decade ago, the idea of Google Glass computer glasses ultimately failed due to concerns that its wearers could film others without being noticed. Google has learned: With currently tested glasses that can display text in foreign languages as a translation for the wearer, it immediately states that they do not record videos.