Justice Dept To Investigate Google-Yahoo Deal

Anonymous Oddity writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the Justice Department's investigating the Yahoo-Google advertising deal. Obviously the deal controls a massive portion of the internet advertising market. US Antitrust law isn't entirely intuitive, but it does tend to frown on large deals between companies that operate on the same level if those deals can be interpreted as restrictive of trade."

Comments

Re:Taxdollars wasted...

[morgan_greywolf]

I've always been confused how publicly traded companies can be considered "monopolies" in any situation except where your governments regulate them into becoming monopolies. If you don't like how a company acts, buy some stock and get your friends and family and cohorts to do the same, then go in and work to change it.

Just because a company is publicly traded, that doesn't excuse them from monopolistic practices, sir.

Nobody I know -- even die-hard Windows fans -- likes how Microsoft acts in the business world. That doesn't stop them from buying their products, though.

None of the people I know who trade stocks trade based on the ethics of a company, either. All of them care only about shareholder value and potential shareholder value. It's all about the dinero.

The problem you have, Mr. Dada, is that you tend to assume that people care about how a company acts enough to influence their choices. But people choose based on what's best for their own livelihood (as well they should). They also don't often choose what's best for their own livelihood in the long run, but tend to look at the short-term. And in the short-term, companies maintaining a monopoly always seem to have the most shareholder value.

And, in the end, public shareholder don't always get a vote anyway. Most of the voting shares of Google are held by Sergei and Larry and guys like that. All the rest of the shareholders don't get much of a say.