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• mike - Feb 03 2008 | blogs, google, microsoft, yahoo

  Wow. This is a remarkably harsh comment on the MS/Yahoo merger by Google's Chief Legal Officer. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

  Quoted: "Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies"

  This borders on the slanderous. It's one thing to seek a competitive advantage - I don't think MS seeks to use illegal means to establish a monopoly ... the Justice department did not rule that MS's monopoly in Operating Systems was illegal - only that it used that monopoly to restrain trade in other markets (e.g., browsers, media players). And subsequent events showed that it was all moot - innovation has more to do with market share - in the age of the internet, MS was in no position to limit distribution of competitive products.

  You could argue that Microsoft's success also relied to a great deal on the openness of their platform. Everyone in the world was invited to create applications for the Windows platform without the need to pay licensing fees of any kind. Compare this to Apple and Nintendo - who each ship entirely closed systems w/o any 3rd party access. And both have created near-monopoly markets (in music players, music download, and portable video games). Where are all the screams of unfair competition for these companies?

  Contrast Mr. Dummond's complaints with the secretiveness of Google in their dealings with the only product that makes them money - their AdSense platform. The don't even reveal to advertisers what % of revenues they are sharing with content partners vs. taking for themselves. Nor are their "competitive" search advertising bids disclosed by Google, who has the ability to arbitrarily and unilaterally increase advertising fees.

  Google has created a monopoly in Search. Shouldn't the Justice department step in to prevent Google from using that dominance to route traffic to web properties they favor to the determent of their competitors? Search is far from open with a great deal of secrecy in how search rankings are computed. Should Google not be forced to be more open?

  In contrast to MS, who only had control of your "start page" on the Internet, Google truly controls which sites will be winners and which will be losers, since virtually all traffic is in-practice sourced via search.

  While some people may "like" Google more than Microsoft, it's pretty clear that the greater potential for abuse lies with the Google Monopoly.
• Tosh - Feb 03 2008 | google, microsoft, yahoo

  Quoted: Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

  Comes off pretty hollow from a company with a search monopoly and a thriving ad business that penalizes small websites in its index for selling text/link ads on their own.
• seiichi - Feb 05 2008 | google, yahoo, microsoft
• seiichi - Feb 04 2008 | google, yahoo, microsoft

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