The nominee for Assistant Attorney General for Anti-trust at the United States Department of Justice, has said that she considers Google to be a monopoly. She also said she was “deeply troubled” by Google’s purchase of DoubleClick and its proposed purchase of Yahoo’s search business.
The key is online advertising. Google’s aggressive moves to dominate this arena have finally caught up to it. What is ironic is that Google is seeking to join the European Commission anti-trust case against Microsoft. People in glasshouses?
Google Vice President Sundar Pichai issued a statement that makes interesting reading in light of Google’s dominant position in online advertising.
“Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users.”
“The value of competition for users (even in the limited form we see today) is clear: tabbed browsing, faster downloads, private browsing features, and more. Even greater competition will drive more innovation within browsers themselves – as well as in web design, enabling sites to load faster and offer new kinds of interactive tools and applications.”
Obviously Google is choosing to do this now because of Chrome but their inconsistent and hypocritical position is not going to wear well. Perhaps it is time to call out Google and shine the spotlight on their potentially anti-trust issues. What do you think?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Barry, they are definitely going to get grilled in 2009 big time.
Some of the stuff that they have been pulling this past few month’s especially since the economy went south is total BS and the double standards are just ridiculous.
Yes, sure…they are rolling out a lot of cool features across their properties but simultaneously they are doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes that don’t sit well with many marketers and businesses but of course 99.9% of all end users and businesses, large and small fail to realize how the changes effects them directly.
It is a very complicated issue and it will indeed be handled by the experts.
Mike
Another example of government way overreaching it’s bounds. It seems we have come to a point and time where punishing people and businesses for being successful is not only acceptable, but more worrisome than that, many people are keen to encourage that persecution.
Bottom line is that they give “people” (meaning individuals and businesses) a LOT of very nice features which are for all intents and purposes free. Yes, they are driven by advertising revenue but I don’t think you can consider a few text ads appearing in your companies freely hosted 2,500 person IMAP email account as too overburdening.
1) Let’s not forget the ability to share documents, spreadsheets, etc across that entire domain (and outside of the domain).
2) A free stat tracking package that rivals everything on the commercial market.
3) The ability to generate ad revenue that is so simple a 5 year old could do it.
4) A great mapping system.
Etc, etc, etc
We could go on for months talking about all the free features Google has made available to everyone.
I suppose Google is indeed a monopoly. It has a death grip on giving away free, useful features to anyone who wants to spend 3 minutes signing up for them. Shame on Google.
“which are for all intents and purposes free” Are they? How does Google run as a business then? Did they create all these “free features” so everyone would think they are nice?
Don’t get me wrong. I do like many of the tools they have created and I feature them on the blog regularly. However it is a business and they get plenty of money in return for these “free” features.
What disturbs me most though is that on one hand they can claim Microsoft is killing innovation by having a monopoly and even join a legal case against them and on the other hand ignore the fact that they have a monopoly on online advertising.
It makes them look hypocritical and also makes it look like Chrome is the only reason they are joining the case against Microsoft. If they declare someone else has a monopoly and should be punished for that, then they can’t object if it happens to them.
Bottom line, I agree with a lot of what you said, I just feel Google is acting in a hypocritical and arrogant way.
They aren’t literally free, but for the end user that fee is pretty much transparent, non-existent. The people who are using ad words or the “enterprise” version of some of Google’s services are paying and are aware of the charges.
The difference between Google and Microsoft is a fairly simple one. Microsoft has created their operating system in such a way that you simply can not use it without at the very least installing certain components of it. In this case I’m specifically thinking of Internet Explorer. You can make it look and feel like IE isn’t there, but you can not remove it from the system and have a full functional, entirely stable system. That’s one example of monopoly.
Google has nothing of the sort. If you don’t want to use Google’s services you don’t have to, and more importantly you don’t even need their software installed to make the rest of your system work. Microsoft forces you to have their software installed.
You say they have a monopoly in online advertising. Anyone is free to use whatever advertising they wish. I use adsense on my blogs and sites because it makes money. My company uses ad words because it converts traffic and bring us business. Google may very well have a monopoly in online advertising, but that’s due to the fact people want to use them, not because of a lack of competition.
Are you suggesting that people should not have a right to choose which revenue streams to use and in the interest of fairness our advertising dollars (or space in the case of adsense) should be distributed to various entities?
Those are good points. Google probably hasn’t gone to the extreme that Microsoft has gone but they are part way down the slippery slope.
What was the last innovation you heard from Microsoft or Yahoo in advertising? Is it Google’s fault? Probably not but it is bad for consumers and I worry it is going to get worse.
The internet thrives from competition and innovation and we need to preserve that. Google has contributed a lot but it is a still a business and business interests can overcome sensibility and legality as we have seen recently with the financial area.
I agree completely people need to choose the revenue streams they want. With the financial and online presence muscle that Google has, I worry that the average person using PPC is not getting a real choice and Google is buying any potential real competition.
BTW thanks for speaking out. I really appreciate a debate even if we don’t agree. Making the issues visible to all is the only way informed decisions can get made.