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MS Urges Antitrust Scuttling of DoubleClick Deal
Microsoft contends that Google's $3.1 billion deal to buy DoubleClick would hurt competition in the online advertising market. And Microsoft expects AT&T, Yahoo, and other companies to join them next week in protesting the proposed sale.
one of the bidders for Doubleclick?
Unhappy loser?
Google buying double click is no worst than Microsoft buying it.. after all MSN & Messenger alone is an elaborate portal of advertising.
There's a pairing that could use some looking at before Google & Double Click.
It's hard to argue in support of this now. Overture or whatever Yahoo's advertising arm calls themselves these days is hardly a competitor, and even Microsoft have admitted their own advertising offering is stillborn at the moment. If Google does get hold of DoubleClick, it means they're literally the only game in town.
When they can afford to lower costs for advertisers, having no competition means they don't have to bother. When they can afford to pay more to webmasters, no competition means they don't have to bother. Even a consumer can get screwed by this, since it'll be all but impossible to visit a site that isn't covered with DoogleClick ads, making 'voting with your feet' impossible. Very rarely does a corporate merger get to screw two sets of customers *and* the general public in one swoop.
For those who say "But they did it with YouTube, so no problem, right?"... YouTube isn't really comparable, since there's a lot of other video sharing sites. YouTube was the biggest, but it's by no means unassailable and it's users arent waiting on a cheque.
Regards,
-Steve Gray
-Cobalt Software
...a justification of using the "sourgrapes" tag, this is it.
I trust Google about as much as I trust any other corp (not much at all) but to see Microsoft crying in its oatmeal is just poetic.
--
BMO
Google is not an OSS company. Little of what they do has been released as free software. How much have they changed linux to optimise their operations? Who would benefit from the same patches? Nobody knows.
Doubleclick was worth more to google because they could multiply it against the adsense data they already own. Microsoft didn't have as much to gain.
Search is the new DNS. Anybody who owned and controlled all of DNS would control the internet. Most of the search market is controlled by google.
Google is only limited in size by the fact that they are an internet company, and the internet is finite. But if they wind up owning much of the internet its not going to be good for the rest of us.
I would love to be able to look forward 10 years and see exactly where this is heading. The don't be evil bit may just be ironic by then.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Google is a publicly traded company and as such here's what's important to them.....
Making money for their stockholders.
There's a fluffy bunny love for Google that everyone has but they may as well change their motto from "Do no evil" to "We do less evil than everyone else". A monopolist Google is no better than Microsoft. I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but giving too much control to any company, much less a publicly traded one, is a horrific idea.
Google is going to do what is best in their corporate interest.
Surprised? Don't be. It's business
You're comparing the Slashdot population to the rest of the internet. There's a difference; we know most of those ads lead to spyware or just don't appeal to us, while many people outside think "ooh, downloadable smileys" and click right through.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Why not ask your power company? After all, they are the ultimate monopolists -- their market share is enforced by law.
Actually, MS is in that space. The problem is that MS is not very sophisticated and they are WAY behind. They are hoping that by buying double click that they can compete head-on with google. Not sure that I really want Google to buy them, but I KNOW that MS buying them will be a far worse event.
MS will have the ability to control it all via windows and MSIE (whereas Google does not have the ability to control except via natural). And while Google is tied in with firefox, MSIE still occupies 85% of the market. And with MS's past history, it should be obvious that they will tie all this together and kill off google. So what if they have to pay a later fine of 10-20 Billion? They will have created another monopolistic market that will earn them 2-10x that amount each year.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It strikes me, however, that even if this would constitute some sort of monopoly, it doesn't touch Microsoft in terms of harm to the consumer. First, I'm still not sure how Google can really abuse the market, even if they do control a large portion of it. People will still be able to use different search engines and different ad services. Plus, if Google somehow ruins the online ad market, it harms... well.... the online ad market. Am I the only one who's not entirely scared by that? I guess I don't buy the idea that, absent of ads, people would simply stop putting content on the web.
Maybe I'm screwy, but I care much more about the OS and Office Suite markets. I'm not expert enough to know whether they should take action to stop this deal with Doubleclick, but Microsoft appealing to anti-trust laws means they accept the validity of the principle.
"Ad-serving networks like DoubleClick place tiny programs on personal computers, called cookies, that monitor where an individual user goes online."
That's the scariest part of the article... that a publication like the NY Times still hasn't figured out what a cookie is, or worse, has but yet misrepresents it to scare people over to their POV.
So they want to stop Google from buying DoubleClick so that they could buy it themselves? Will they ensure that competition will remain vibrant if they buy it, or is competition just important when Microsoft is not involved?
I did another post elsewhere where I suggest that MS, Google, AND yahoo should be prevented from buying Double Click. There is too much ability to tie all this together. But by far, MS is the worse one.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is there anyone here who actually allows content from *.doubleclick.* to their PCs?
Check out the cave on the east side of lake Hylia. Strange and wonderful things live in it.
Since it isn't illegal to be a monopoly, just illegal to abuse the position. And since Google hasn't acted like Microsoft by ever using it's position to wipe out competitors. Yes, lets.
Those who act responsibly should be allowed positions of responsibility. Those who act selfishly, should be barred from those positions.
I doubt that anyone can be a monopoly in advertising.
Ads aren't like fuel oil, precious metals, telephone communication,
business computers or operating systems. A customer's lack of choice
in consuming advertisements means less sales for the advertiser.
The advertiser would then be unwise to continue allocating money towards
a loosing advertising channel and the problem would correct itself.
It's hard enough to imagine a monopoly on search with 3 giant companies in
the market but a monopoly on advertising is just a silly concept to me.
I wouldn't call this "the pot calling the kettle black", it's more like "the kettle calling the pot a kettle."
But it would be better if MS, Yahoo, and Google were prevented from buying DC.
Google is a natural monopoly and has earned their position. Until they tie it to something or pull an illegal act, they should not be regulated (but should be watched to make sure that they do not do a MS). But it is in the consumer's best interest to not allow this.
MS, OTH, has shown that they are an illegal monopolists (multiple times) and will obviously continue their actions. Always. Why? Because it is FAR cheaper to cheat and pay the trivial penalties that govs. apply, then it is to have to compete fairly. They should also be banned.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Microsoft would immediately turn it into an abusive monopoly and Google won't. What's the difference between the two?
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist and serial abuser of said monopoly power with an operational philosophy/culture that encourages this. Google isn't.
For the most part, their 'product' is invisible.
Maybe to the average consumer. Not to those buying online advertising.
While Google has many competitors in that marketplace, none of them get a lot of press. Or any press at all, aside from trade journals.
It's because none of Google's competitors have managed to duplicate both sides of their business:
(a) online advertising
(b) interesting, useful, highly usable information technology services
Google has good stuff on both sides of the equation. They sell ads on websites. They create websites that are premeire destinations on the web and sell ads on them. Nobody else really does both of them as well.
There are many competitors that do online advertising pretty well. And those are invisible to Joe Consumer, but not to those buying online advertising (hence the trade journals).
Tweet, tweet.
But what does fair mean in this instance? The owners of DoubleClick no doubt think that the deal is quite fair, and presumably Google does also, so that leaves competitors, customers and content providers(the people that Google and DoubleClick buy ad space from). Ad buyers want the most eyeballs per dollar, and content providers want the most dollars per eyeball. No one can control what prices those people find acceptable, and thus what they are either willing to pay or willing to accept for a given ad or advertising space. So Google gains another chunk of the eyeball-dollar matching market in this deal, but they do not gain any ability to keep other people out of this market(because all I have to do to compete with Google, no matter how big they are, is match space dealers and buyers up more efficiently than they do). There is some danger that they get so big that it is hard for competitors to gain attention, but they can't buy up 100% of what they are selling, since all you have to do to make more of it is start up a website.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
None of this really matters if you block all of the ads anyway. Does anyone see an ad at the top of this page? I don't.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
For the record, Microsoft doesn't really have anything to compete with Google in the advertising space right now.
That's the best argument there is for not allowing MS to purchase Doubleclick. Microsofts can leverage it's monopoly on the desktop to then control the online advertising business and then have monopoly on that as well. The way they used the same monopoly to gain monopoly control of the browser market.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Gooogle's customers are not web users. Thier customers are the purchasers of add space.
If you are looking to purchase advertising space and there is only one main company you can go to on the internet to see large numbers of hits, then yes, they can abuse you royally.
As much as I like to see Google do well, and detest MS buisiness strategy, I have to agree with them on this. They should not be allowed to develop a monopoly by purchasing major compeditors.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Microsoft contends...
Geez, this is so freakin' stupid, I can smell it from the other side of the pond. It's a damn money game, if you want that dblclick so much, pay more, it's so easy ! Why come out in the light with "arguments" which smell so badly and rotten of piles of bullshit that it makes everyone and dog with at least as much brain as a chicken laugh out loud in pain ?
Of course they don't like the idea of Google taking something away from their nose. Of course they would want a bigger part of the online ad cake. Of course they would do anything to stop Google becoming more powerful in the area. And yet, instead of paying the price, they start antitrust accusations ? Now come on, this behavior is downright ridiculous. And of course they would want yahoo and co. on their part in this case, despite them knowing all too well what would happen to them if MS put their hands on a pig part of the online ad business. Right ?
It's easy to take away others' lunches while you're the big guy. Thing is, some things aren't meant to last forever. Go figure.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.