Google Claims They "Just Aren't That Big"

The New York Times is reporting that Google is making the case that they just aren't that big, especially from an anti-trust point of view. While they certainly corner the market in search, advertising, and online video, Dana Wagner, Google's "senior competition counsel," is working hard to convince the public that "competition is a click away." "None of the investigations take aim at Google's core advertising business. And unlike other technology giants in years past, Google has not been accused of anticompetitive tactics. But the investigations and carping from competitors and critics have Google fighting to dispel the notion that it has a lock on its market, even as it increases its share of search and online advertising. Eyes are rolling, especially in reaction to the idea that Google is a relatively small player in a giant market. 'They describe where they are in a market under a kind of a fairy-tale spun gloss that doesn't reflect their dominance of key sectors,' said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. 'Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.'"

Comments

The alternative is much worse

[thetoadwarrior]

It's better than having a software monopolist tying their awful search engine into all their products and becoming number one.

Re:The alternative is much worse

[Freetardo Jones]

What you mean because I installed Windows as my OS, I'm forced to use IE now? You mean I can't just surf to mozilla.com or opera.com and download an alternate browser because of some sort of blocking mechanism? Wow, I just never noticed that before. Guess I'll have to look closer.

Re:The alternative is much worse

[ScentCone]

The fact that Explorer is just an extension of IE (XP still opens IE when you type a url into the adress bar of Explorer) speaks for itself

Yeah, it's almost like you have this "operating system," and it's designed to open files and stuff. And it's almost like the company that makes that operating system is, you know, a software company. And it's almost like they've realized that a browser-type app is the right front-end metaphor for most of the information that typical users of their operating system will want to see. So Eeeeeevil of them to provide a basic information tool as a built-in and well-integrated part of the operating system that is being used to, you know, work with information.

I suppose you'd also prefer that their OS didn't ship with a file system, or at least preferred that the file system was very poorly coupled to the operating system and the user experience? Excellent idea! In fact, the operating system maker has no business deciding what tools their customers might find useful. Other companies and governments should be in charge of designing the software made by that company. We can't have companies deciding what features to add to their own products, or what sort coupling with a web browser their own operating system should have. No way. That's too much freedom for a software company. We can't have freedom. We have to have software designed by goverment committees and courts! Unless, of course, it's a Mac, and that's OK. Or a Linux distro.

Re:The alternative is much worse

[Darkness404]

But how is it any different? After all, all IE really just a shell for trident. I could in a few lines of VB "make" a browser that had a totally different UI that ran trident, would you consider that the same thing as IE? Or is my browser suddenly different? And yes, effectively the use of Gecko is more or less "using Firefox" in the fact that it uses a major component of Firefox that is the main component in Firefox itself.

Re:The alternative is much worse

[ScentCone]

MS used its MONOPOLY in Operating Systems to stifle the browser segment

How about the Notepad Text Editor segment? How about the TCP/IP stack segment? How about the disk defragging segment? Should all of those be ripped out of the operating system? I consider a web browser to be an essential part of the operating system. I don't ever want to install an operating system that doesn't natively know how to grab an IP address from DHCP, resolve hostnames, connecto to web sites, and show me information. But you think that I should not be able to do that without interacting with third parties and their own software.

Why arent you simply saying that Microsoft should not be allowed to make operating systems? That's the logical step for your point of view. Even though there are other operating systems to choose from, you find that MS should not be allowed to have a definition of what a web browser is, as it relates to their own OS. Why? What about Firefox and Opera and Chrome and Safari is it that MS is suppressing? Or are you really just complaining because most people are lazy, and don't want to have to assemble their own operating system out of essential modules (like a web browser), and would rather just have something that works? They can buy that from Apple, or they can buy it from Microsoft. But you think one of them shouldn't be allowed to compete in the providing of an operating system that has vital things (like web browsing capability) already installed - even though they can run out and download any other tool they want, any time they want.

Are you even listening to yourself?

Re:The alternative is much worse

[Elwood P Dowd]

I'm not sure I follow your point. What you are describing is the result of a decade of anti-trust litigation against Microsoft. Had they been allowed, they certainly might have attempted to prevent you from installing Firefox or Opera.

They're not big.

[Anonymous Coward]

They only dominate the market because of one thing.

They made a search engine that works and doesn't piss everyone off with flashing blinking ads everywhere!

Did google do anything to make all the other search engines suck ass? No.

Did google buy out the competition so they were #1? No.

Google just made a good service people CHOOSE to use.

Re:They're not big.

[nschubach]

Right. The difference between Google's market share and Microsoft's share is that I can take my email elsewhere, I can search another site, and I can go to any of 50 video sites. I never have to look at another Google app the rest of my life and I'm not going to have to suffer to pay rent. With Microsoft, you can't just pack up your Games, Office applications/Exchange app, and development suites and move to Linux. You can't work in the business world without having to support Microsoft in one way or another... or find a job that has nothing to do with computers.

It's a matter of being able to leave if you don't like the service. Anyone can leave Google in an hour if they wanted. Even though I use Linux daily, I still have to use Windows at work and at home if I want to play the latest game.

That's Weird, Because Fiscally ...

[eldavojohn]

Your market cap is $134 billion to put this into perspective IBM's is $139 billion and Microsoft's is $211 billion.

You may well employ far fewer than either of those two giants, but you aren't "running with the big dogs" now ... you are a big dog. If you're pulling in more than a billion per quarter in sheer profit, you're going to lose that argument. Money is more important than number of employees when you're relating to other companies.

Keep telling yourselves that

[AKAImBatman]

While I agree with the statement that Google has not been anticompetitive AND with the statement that competition is "only a click away"*, Google does one thing that still makes them a large company on the order of Microsoft:

Google buys out the competition

Mergers and acquisitions are a matter of course for the technology industry. But when you build your portfolio by simply buying off the leader in a new market space, then you become a holding corporation. That's been the mark of Microsoft for two decades now and it's become the mark of Google as well. Google Groups (DejaNews), Google Docs (Writely), Youtube, Google Analytics (Urchin), Android, etc. all testify to this.

While I'll grant that Google adds their own spin to the products and often integrates them better than acquisitions made by many of their competitors, it still does not change the fact that Google purchases their markets. And that... that is a damning argument against their "we're not that big" statement.

* Ignoring the competitive advantage of Google's massive infrastructure for a moment.

Re:Keep telling yourselves that

[Anonymous Coward]

The only one of those companies that Google was actually competing against was YouTube (with Google Video). Google didn't have entries in those other markets until they acquired those companies.

Re:Keep telling yourselves that

[MBoffin]

I don't know how strong my point will be here, since I haven't bothered to look up the data, but I wonder....

How many of the companies Google has bought out were publicly-traded companies? From first look, it doesn't seem like that many at all. And if that's the case, then the companies that sold out to Google, did so of their own volition and not because they were beholden to their public investors to make a decision that would make more money for the investors.

Re:Keep telling yourselves that

[caerwyn]

You're confusing purchases that open new markets with purchases that remove competition in an existing market.

Purchasing Writely enabled Google to compete in a new market. It did not remove competition in any way- in some ways it expanded it, by giving Writely as a product more backing against its competitors. Similarly with DejaNews, Blogger, etc.

The only instance in which a purchase *removed* competition was the purchase of YouTube, where it resulted in the death of Google Video- competition was reduced because a player left the field.

The two activities are very different and can't meaningfully be compared.

Re:Keep telling yourselves that

[Red Flayer]

What about Youtube and Google Video, among others?

Oh I'm sorry, you chose only to mention products without prior competing (and publicly known!) projects from Google.

At any rate, Google's model depends on information-gathering. Any online service used by people is competition to Google, as it limits their ability to collect data which they can use to target advertising. You do realize that all of Google's "products" are really just info-gathering services, right? And that their real product is targeted advertising?

ANY web service is a competitor to Google. Period.

Somewhat

[Anonymous Coward]

They are THAT big (that's what she said) but it's true that competition is just a click away. Apart from the obvious of just using another search engine, any documents you have on google docs can be converted properly to a lot of open source formats and you can leave. Social networking? Plenty of those. News aggregators? Plenty of those. Rss feeds? Plenty. Geolocation? Just throw on a tracker and use your own maps.
Really, there's nothing google does that can't be done by anyone else. They just do it damn well.
Fuck you microsoft and other motherfucking disable-fucking-copy-paste-if-licence-expires Office counterparts, THAT is anti-competitive, not google.

Re:they're not that big by most measures

[macbeth66]

How about market cap?

$134 billion for Google.com
$139 billion for IBM
$211 billionfor Microsoft

Re:What's their motto?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then you're in idiot.

Re:Hi...

[srealm]

To be honest, I think this is exactly the way he would want to be remembered. He had a larger than life personality/persona - he would not want people moping around 'boo hoo, Billy Mays is dead.'

Billy was not above poking fun at himself either, and it was an image he cultivated. The fact that he, and his pitch style was so recognizable speaks volumes. So no, I don't think it's too soon, I see the above as a celebration of Billy, not a satire of him.