Congressman Warns FTC: Leave Google Alone

concealment writes with this selection from Ars Technica: "A Democratic congressman who played a leading role in the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this year has taken up a new cause: shielding Google from antitrust scrutiny. In a strongly worded letter to Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) praised Google's contribution to the nation's economy. He warned Leibowitz that if the FTC does choose to initiate an antitrust case against Google, Congress might react by curtailing its regulatory authority."

Comments

Re:Leave Google Alone!

[Kuroji]

You are one hundred percent right. Google is a corporation, and corporations are people, my friend.

As much as I like Jared, I differ here

[WindBourne]

If there is real proof that Google has a monopoly (i.e. they control the market) and that they have acted illegally by manipulating results wrongly or have forced tied products to their search engine, they SHOULD be investigated. The real issue here is that Google has a LARGE share, but does not have a monopoly. In addition, does anybody have any real proof that Google has manipulated results or forced other products to be tied to their search engine?

Good examples are ATT, IBM and MS. Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.

Re:As much as I like Jared, I differ here

[StormReaver]

Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.

Nor has anyone else.

There is a witch hunt against Google because it provides a set of services that provides better value than any of its competitors. There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone else from getting into search, except the need to provide a better product. This isn't like AT&T, IBM, or Microsoft (as you rightly pointed out), where there were insurmountable barriers (ability to install competing phone lines, incompatibilities causing vendor lock-in, and [what should have been illegal] exclusivity agreements with the entire supply chain).

The only thing keeping someone from competing with Google is that people like Google. Using a competing search engine is trivially easy (you just need to go there), but Google just provides a better service.

This witch hunt is just a desperate attempt by failed competitors to get the Government to make Google less useful, because the competitors know they can't compete on their merits.

Re:ATTN: Jared Polis

[NatasRevol]

Not all sides.

Lobbyists only work on the money sides.

Re:ATTN: Jared Polis

[RazorSharp]

Jim Taggart and his railroad were already chummy with Washington in the beginning of the book

Yeah, this point was conveniently overlooked. They've already been given tax breaks, handouts, protections, etc from the gov't. But the did it 'all on their own' and not at all at the cost of others.

I thought this was the biggest fallacy of Atlas Shrugged: Railroads aren't economically sustainable in a laissez-faire system, or even possible to build without eminent domain, so Rand's point about Nat Taggart building his railroad with nothing but his brains and braun was a bunch of bullshit. History especially proved Rand wrong: just compare the European and Asian railroads to American ones. Not only are the 'socialist' rail systems of Europe and Asia much more modern, but they're also utilized much more and provide immense opportunities not available in the States. Outside a couple large metropolises (which have 'socialist' subways and trains), in the States a person is screwed without a car. It's a Catch-22 for many: can't get a job without a car, can't get a car without a job. The U.S. has Amtrak and freight trains and that's it.