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Senators Recommend FTC Perform Antitrust Investigation Of Google
SharkLaser writes "U.S. Senators have written to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission about their concerns over Google's Internet monopoly. Google executives did themselves no favors when the Senators looked at Google's business practices in September. When asked if Google has monopoly in online search, Google chairman Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying 'I would agree, Senator, that we are in that area.' Another worrying quote is from Marissa Meyer, Google's VP of location services, who said that it was 'only fair' that Google put its own sites on higher placements than competitors. The Senators are also warning that Google is only facing one real competitor (PDF), Microsoft's Bing. Almost all other metasearch engines use either Google or Bing technology to deliver search results, including DuckDuckGo which uses Bing. In Europe Google is currently under investigation of monopoly abuse and the EU has also delayed Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility."
"You'd have to make an argument that Google is unfairly forcing their search users to also use their other services,"
The argument for a monopoly is generally about the customers, and the people searching on Google are not the customers. People searching on Google are part of the product. The advertisers are the Google's customers. If Google is overly dominant in the advertising or possibly even in just the search/advertising markets, AND they are charging more when they feel someone is competing with them, it could very well be considered anti-competitive behavior.
Also, if they have search dominance, and are using that to gain advantage in other markets(even if their only profit in those markets is ad revenue), then they could also be considered anti-competitive.
By your definition, any new invention, in any field, is monopoly abuse. After all, when it first appears, there is no alternative, therefore it's a monopoly that's being abused.
Now, if Google were to make it technically impossible to do so (which they haven't), or legally forbid others from doing so (which they haven't), then it would be monopoly abuse.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It doesn't sensor search results. It censors search suggestions. The title of that article is intentionally misleading. People who still want to search for TPB or isohunt still can just fine, they just have to finish typing the whole word now. I know entering 5 more key strokes can be a daunting task, but you can still search. I think of it as a nice was for google to kiss some corporate media ass (considering they do content provision now) without actually affecting the people who still want to search for these sites.