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Obama Anti-Trust Chief on Google the Monopoly Threat

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the it-has-to-be-said dept.

CWmike writes "The blogosphere regularly excoriates Microsoft for being a monopoly, but Google may be in the cross-hairs of the nation's next anti-trust chief for monopolistic behavior, writes Preston Gralla. Last June, Christine A. Varney, President Obama's nominee to be the next antitrust chief, warned that Google already had a monopoly in online advertising. 'For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem,' Varney said at a June 19 panel discussion sponsored by the American Antitrust Institute, according to a Bloomberg report. The US economy will 'continually see a problem — potentially with Google' because it already 'has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising.' Varney has yet to be confirmed as antitrust chief, and she said all this before she was nominated. Still, it spells potentially bad news for Google. It may be time for the company to start adding to its legal staff."

4 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Why is she allowed to serve? by tjstork · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Basically, you have some gung-ho lefty making a bunch of proclamations, admitting a bias against another company, and she's going to be in a position of power in government? Oh wait, I forgot, this is change we can believe in, just another form of chicago cronyism... or really, detroit, judging by the way this administration is driving the country into the ground.

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    This is my sig.
    1. Re:Why is she allowed to serve? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      admitting a bias against another company

      How is saying that she's more concerned with Google than with Microsoft in terms of future potential for abuse of monopoly power a sign of "bias"? Having an opinion is bias now, I guess?

      or really, detroit, judging by the way this administration is driving the country into the ground.

      Ah... I see, it's "everyone is like me" syndrome.

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      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Why is she allowed to serve? by syntaxglitch · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Basically, you have some gung-ho lefty making a bunch of proclamations, admitting a bias against another company, and she's going to be in a position of power in government? Oh wait, I forgot, this is change we can believe in, just another form of chicago cronyism... or really, detroit, judging by the way this administration is driving the country into the ground.

      And the funny part is, even if everything you say is accurate, it'd STILL be an improvement over how the Republicans had been running things!

  2. Re:here we go again.. by Uberbah · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Wow. I see after 30 years of Republicans cornholing the U.S., people are pissed

    Fixed that for you.

    ready to support your political heroes full bore.

    What heroes? I divide my time between smacking down wingnut BS here and Obama fanboys on Dailykos. To bad we can't put all of you in a room together with free Kool Aid for everyone, and let the problem sort itself out naturally.

    Oh wait, this is about Obama's new Anti-trust chief going ape on a search engine that happens to have sponsored links clearly separate from the results, and a successful advertising model that doesn't annoy the user. Not the opinions of a 20-something who not only didn't live through the Hoover era, but who also didn't live through the Reagan era, but knows all sorts of incorrect things about them. In fact, said 20-something received all of his/her opinions in something resembling a benediction from high school teachers and *maybe* university professors.

    What the hell are you, and Obama's anti-trust chief, babbling about? You're not making any sense, and I have a lot more ad servers Adblocked than just doubleclick.net and googlesyndication.com.