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Obama Anti-Trust Chief on Google the Monopoly Threat
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."
Agreed. Sure Google is dominating the online advertising market, but maybe it's largely because their ads are not overtly obtrusive and are often relevant. I consciously refuse to click on ads I find annoying, but I've actually used Google ads to find obscure products that I am looking to buy.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
That's not the only way to look at it. Google could use their advertising clout to harm companies that rely on internet advertising in order to exert influence in that particular industry.
I'm not saying how likely it would be to occur, just that it's possible.
I don't see a huge likelihood of danger from Google based on their advertising monopoly. I do see potential dangers from a monoculture of reliance on Google's other services, much like the problems that have arisen from a Microsoft monoculture. Given that their power is derived from voluntary use of their (mostly) free products, antitrust law could be difficult to apply to their actions in many regards. If Google starts abusing their power, it will likely be a very unique case from a legal standpoint.
Who forces people to click on Google.com when they want to do a search? Last I checked, Internet Explorer which comes on every Windows computer defaults to MSN search until you specifically set it otherwise.
And who is losing money because of Google's size? Certainly not the consumer, who has benefited tremendously from Google's innovations, which are free.
Once upon a time, Yahoo Email charged an annual fee for POP3 and anything larger than a few megabytes of storage. Then Google came along and offered a free email with POP3 and huge storage and changed the whole game. Yahoo (and Hotmail) was forced to counter with added storage and reduced/eliminated fees. That's not monopolism, it's innovation!
I'm not scared by some dumb bureaucrat like Christina Varney. What's frightening is the apparent lack of appreciation by the Obama Administration for capitalism as a force for economic growth.
With a presidency that is socialist-leaning and big-government-oriented, it seems we are backsliding into a kind of pre-Reagan era where business is viewed as a necessary evil, the best and brightest should work for the Feds or community organizations, and we shouldn't even try to compete with our ultra-capitalistic competitors in East Asia and elsewhere.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.