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New Antitrust Boss Has Already Expressed Concerns About Google
from the so-much-for-eric-schmidt's-relationship... dept
There have been some folks in the press who have repeatedly pointed out Google CEO Eric Schmidt's close relationship with President Obama to suggest that Google should be "protected" from government regulation. However, there's little to suggest that's necessarily the case. Plenty of folks who feel strongly anti-Google have close relationships with the administration as well. And, as Bloomberg notes, Obama's nominee for antitrust chief, Christine Varney, has recently described Google as a likely antitrust problem, noting the company "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising." Of course, that's wrong on many levels (it doesn't have anything close to a monopoly in online ads), but this should at least serve as evidence that reports of Google's "control" over the administration isn't nearly as strong as some have been suggesting.
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really?
Google is the least of our worries. If they go, what would really happen? Some other search engine or app provider would jump at the chance. What he should be concentrating on is rewriting antitrust law to cover businesses who are "too big to fail". Honestly, if you are too big to fail and require federal aid, you are too big to exist as is.
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Should I trust the Anti Trust Chief ?
Why do we need an Anti Trust Chief?
Is this part of the Justice Dept?
There are a whole lot of new Czar positions - is there an Anti Trust Czar? The Czar positions is total BS anyway, I never did understand the need for that crap
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AntiTrust
Someone once said if you go looking for plots and schemes then plots and schemes are what you'll find.
Seems to me antitrust and Google don't belong in the same sentence. I think its a case of all the other 'also-rans' are complaining about Google being 'too good.'
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This is why
When somebody is put in a position, they must understand the tubs of the interwebs before declaring them the anti trust
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Figures
Google bases its philosophy on innovation and has been successful. Their business model is unique. The company uses team management where the employees vote on new ideas, instead of the typical corporate dictatorship. A successful corporation in corporate America that is "different" scares people. So it figures that people would attack Google.
Google's advertisements are less intrusive on websites because they are text based. Cruise the internet and you will find tons of websites that still use flash advertising. If other advertisers want some of Google's market, then perhaps they should go back to basics and follow Google's example. Since other advertisers aren't attempting to take Google's market, this leads me to believe there is no concern.
The idea that Google is monopolizing is a ridiculous claim. I'm certain Google's legal team can dispute such accusations. I wish corporate America would adopt Google's philosophies. Perhaps we wouldn't have to bail them out then.
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Do you use Google?
I agree that if Google failed someone else would jump in their spot. That very thing happened to AltaVista, Excite, even WebCrawler.
But Google is such a dominant force that EVERYBODY uses Google. There are very few people on the internet that use anything else to do searches. That makes Google more or less a monopoly.
Now the difference is whether they have an unfair monopoly, or if they have done anything dirty in the business world to push other people out. The closest thing they had was the Google-Yahoo deal, which would have been a big strike against Microsoft's Live search, but I still don't see that as an unfair business practice. More like Yahoo opting to go with the best search engine out there.
An unfair business practice would be something like excluding or lowering Microsoft's site from search results, or forcing you to use Google Search when using Chrome.
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Google's market power is a real concern.
When Google marked the whole Web as malware a few weeks ago, many users literally didn't know what to do; they didn't know how to get to another search engine (or, in some cases, that other search engines even existed!). And now that it has merged with Doubleclick, Google is also the largest source of spyware tracking cookies on the Internet. Google also reads the e-mail of GMail subscribers and uses it to compile dossiers on users (which can then be linked to the cookie data). Google also has a ridiculous 70%+ share of the Web advertising market. This is far too much power for any one corporation to have. Is it any wonder that Google is lobbying in DC like crazy -- in part for regulations that would keep ISPs from limiting its market power?
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Abuse of mkt. power is illegal -- "monopoly" is just shorthand
Ms. Varney is using antitrust shorthand when she talks about Google's monopoly. Under antitrust law, she is almost certainly right in saying that GOOG can raise and lower prices at will, if only within a relatviely modest band. Under that definition, GOOG has market power and can be prosecuted under antimonopoly laws.
GOOG of course does not literally have all of the market, but its ubiquity and resultant precision targeting are such that new entrants who could give them a run for the money are -- well, nowhere to be seen.
At some point, when barriers to entry get high enough and pricing power gets big enough, companies start abusing their power. We don't know for sure if Google has reached that point but we should find out if the Tradecomet case goes to trial.
Most people thought there was no Microsoft monopoly, either, back in the day. If Google engages in tactics like those MSFT once used they will be brought to heel. The biggest problem is we won't know for sure unless there is a prosecution and trial that brings out all the nasty stuff, just as it did in the Microsoft case. The media was for the most part shocked and shocked even more to find out things that had been whispered around the Valley for years.
Let's remeber that Christine Varney was a major consultant for Netscape duruing the Microsoft trial and talked to reporters more than a few times during the case. She knows how these things play out from up close.
The parallels are striking. Just wait and see. My money is on Varney for the win.
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I don't think Google has a monopoly, either. I just thought it hilarious enough to point out that this article has on it's right side and below it - you guessed it - Google ads. Not suggesting a monopoly there, just pointing out the irony of the situation.
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I don't think Google has a monopoly, either. I just thought it hilarious enough to point out that this article has on it's right side and below it - you guessed it - Google ads. Not suggesting a monopoly there, just pointing out the irony of the situation.
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Market dominance != monopoly
The other Dave is 100% correct - being dominant != being an illegal monopoly.
Google should be watched by the federal government to make sure they aren't being sneaky and doing anything illegal. But they're dominant because most of the time they're the best.
Microsoft's problem was that they were tying everything together and not giving users a choice. Google (so far) has done quite the opposite.
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Wow
I think we should be more worried that Obama is off to a great start with nominees that know nothing about their jobs, rather than a little political chumming.
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The other part of the complaint was that Google was getting into the clown computing arena. Which is silly. From what I understand, Google helped to write open-standards such as OpenSocial, blogging, and the like.
Google is just hella-good at executing and getting products to market.
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No sympathy
Sorry, I've got no sympathy for google, given what they're doing in Europe right now to have the EU force MS to change their products.
If google wants to play that game as opposed to competing in a free market, I say toss the Dept of Justice at 'em and break them up.
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