Back in early April, I pointed out how Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) had quietly built an advertising machine that could truly challenge Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL), and as such should concern owners of GOOGL stock.

Though Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) was also in the line of fire, at least the social network was developing an ad-selling platform that made its inventory more attractive to advertisers.

Since then, two new threats to Alphabet’s Google have emerged.

One threat is the newly formed company called Oath, born out of the union of AOL and Yahoo following last week’s acquisition of Yahoo by Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ). The other is the union of publishers and advertisers that are tired of being pushed around by Alphabet and Facebook, and left fighting for scraps the two web giants didn’t want to bother sweeping off the floor.

Thing is, while Google has proven pretty much impervious in the past, the company may want to take these threats semi-seriously.

Oath

In March, long after Verizon announced it was going to acquire Yahoo but well before the deal was done, Verizon-owned AOL chief Tim Armstrong was making some rather bold statements about how the Yahoo/AOL team-up was going to prove disruptive for Google and Facebook.

Since then he’s backed off on the aggressiveness of the stance, dialing back the rhetoric to suggest the combination of Yahoo and AOL — called Oath — won’t exactly be battling Alphabet and Facebook head-to-head. His precise words? “Our goal is not to directly compete with Google and Facebook. Our goal is to basically open up new relationships with consumers in a differentiated way.”

There’s some dual logic to his premise.

First, even if he wanted to out-muscle Facebook and Google, Oath would have a tough time doing so. It’s just a matter of size and reach. Second, he’s also right in the sense that the future (at least a respectable sliver of the future) of digital advertising as about “two-way relationships between consumers and brands.”

And that’s where Oath can and will stand out in the competition for advertising dollars.

Neither Facebook nor Google own any of the web content they’re leveraging to drive revenue. They’re just the middlemen. AOL owns brands/websites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch, while Yahoo Finance homepage and Yahoo Sports are home-grown destinations in and of themselves. Whereas using Facebook and Google as a place to advertise is a scattershot approach, Yahoo and AOL can indeed facilitate the valuable relationship that advertisers increasingly seek with publishers because it’s also the publisher.

In time, that could divert some advertising dollars away from the two giants in the arena.

Amazon

The advent of Amazon.com’s ad-sales network, which now reaches beyond Amazon’s own properties and puts ads on third-party sites, isn’t taking a massive toll on Alphabet or Facebook yet. As I explained in March, it’s young and will need time to get traction.

There are plenty of industry insiders who suspect it’s going to achieve that traction sooner rather than later though. As Lars Glenne, head of media strategy for DigitasLBi, put it:

“Advertisers are realizing that Amazon’s search intent is in many cases more valuable as it happens further down the purchase funnel, in comparison to Google search, where people are more likely to be doing a search at the beginning of their purchase journeys.”

Sonobi

And if it’s not Amazon or Oath, it may well be Sonobi that establishes the third force that creates a headwind for GOOGL stock.

Sonobi probably isn’t a name that rings a bell with many investors. It’s just an ad-technology developer that helps other companies advertise more effectively online. It’s Sonobi’s proverbial partners in crime that turn heads though.

In an effort coordinated by Sonobi, IBM-owned The Weather Company, Penske Media, the New York Daily News and a few dozen other publishers who are also weary of being pushed around by Google (as well as by Facebook), are teaming up to cultivate their own third-party alternative to the two powerhouses in the business.

It’s a small effort so far. Between the group’s participants, there are still only 150 million identifiable consumers these companies can collectively market to. Those numbers are growing fast though. Sonobi expects to double that headcount before the end of the year.

Looking Ahead for GOOGL Stock

The irony of issuing a warning to owners of GOOGL stock is that through both good times and allegedly bad ones, Alphabet hasn’t failed once in the past 10 years to improve the top or the bottom lines.

Clearly something is working.

On the other hand, nothing lasts forever. Now under attack on three different fronts — led by three of the best-organized and well-supported entities we’ve ever seen mount a challenge to Google — the search giant is more threatened than it’s ever been.

Even if you don’t ultimately believe anyone or anything can dent Google’s dominance, it would be short-sighted to recognize the possibility that at least one of these groups could end up causing some trouble for Alphabet.

As of this writing, James Brumley did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.