The spinoff would be a major blow to the tech giant and will likely kick off a legal fight with wide-reaching implications for its core business.

Efforts by U.S. antitrust regulators to break up Alphabet by forcing a sale of its Google Chrome browser and other proposals to limit its search dominance are likely to run into legal challenges on grounds the remedies are extreme.

The US government has urged a federal judge to force Google to divest its Chrome browser after a ruling found that Google holds a monopoly in the search market and violated US antitrust law.