Google Was 3 Hours Away From DOJ Antitrust Charges

turnkeylinux writes "Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. called off their joint advertising agreement just three hours before the Department of Justice planned to file antitrust charges to block the pact, according to the lawyer who would have been lead counsel for the government. 'We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day,' says Litvack, who rejoins Hogan & Hartson today. 'We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement.'"

Comments

Could be fun

[Xest]

I can't help but think you could make a game of this.

Announce something to get the government's back up, wait until they've done loads and loads of preparation then rip their opportunity from under them just before they get chance.

The only downside is it's a waste of tax payers cash, not that most public sector jobs aren't a waste of tax payers cash anyway though.

Re:Could be fun

[Anonymous Coward]

(on a side note: for those who thought Google was any less predatory than Microsoft, think again...)

It's amazing the stupidity of the average slashdotter. That's why I love this place, I guess.

Just to remind you, Microsoft bundled IE with Windows when it had a monopoly on Windows. And, just to remind you in case you forgot, there's nothing illegal about having a monopoly. It just means you outcompeted everyone else. What is illegal is abusing that monopoly.

Let's look at TFA:

The never-filed government complaint would have charged that the agreement violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Litvack tells the Am Law Daily in one of his first interviews since the companies canned the venture. Section 1 bans agreements that restrain trade unreasonably. Section 2 makes it unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade.

So they were basing this on the idea that this would restrain and monopolize trade, so it sounds like all Google did was to make a bigger monopoly and there's a law against that. They didn't abuse any monopoly, which is what Microsoft did.

But let's look closer. Google's deal with Yahoo was actually proposed as a joint venture whereby Yahoo was supposed to profit as well, and furthermore, Yahoo had the option to back out of the deal and use Google only to the extent they wished.

So, if you want to compare Google to Microsoft, let's try to come up with an analogy that would, maybe, make your complaint not sound like the ramblings of a 4 year old. Perhaps if Microsoft and Apple penned a deal to put Windows on the Mac because Apple wasn't selling as many Macs as they wanted because the market preferred Windows.

Anyway, my point is simply this: There's a clear difference between what Google did and what Microsoft did. Google offered to sell its products to its competitors at a rate that was apparently fair enough that they considered it. Microsoft tried to destroy its competitors by abusing an existing monopoly in an unrelated space.

Personally, I think it might be a good thing that the DOJ stopped this (though maybe not if MS now buys Yahoo and guts them), but if you can't see there's a difference between getting a monopoly by being better than your competition and abusing a monopoly because you can't compete in a space, then maybe you should avoid posting things like the above that make you sound like an idiot.

Anyway, let me leave you with one final tidbit from the article:

Litvack acknowledges that Microsoft Corporation and other companies lobbied the department to block the agreement, both publicly and and in private meetings. Litvack insists, though, that Microsoft's lobbying had no bearing on his recommended course of action or on the division's ultimate decision. Microsoft was represented by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

Sure, I believe that.

Re:Where did it go?

[digitig]

The free market that is...

It has never existed, and hopefully never will. Its only advantage is doctrinal purity for some economists who don't like dealing with the messiness of the real world. There would be no advantages for any society that implemented it, and significant disadvantages because it has no effective way of managing the many cases where the cost of an action is not borne by those who benefit from the action. Mixed economies are the only pragmatic economies; the real debate is just over what the precise mix should be.