Google operates YouTube, the video-sharing platform it acquired in 2006.
YouTube was founded in February 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. Google announced the acquisition in October 2006, and the deal was completed for approximately $1.65 billion in Google stock.
The service lets users upload, watch, share, and comment on video content. It grew from a user-uploaded-video website into a major platform for entertainment, news, education, music, livestreaming, and advertising.
YouTube remains a Google service, while Google operates under Alphabet, its parent company since 2015. This corporate structure can cause confusion in market-capitalization questions: the listed company is Alphabet, but the specific platform owner and operator is Google.