Goobris Alert on Google-Admob

Goobris: (noun) Google's frequent total lack of self awareness when it says something publicly. 

In the Reuters article "Google to fight Government if AdMob deal blocked," Google CEO Eric Schmidt exhibited characteristic goobris in criticizing the FTC's review of the Google-AdMob acquisition.

First, Mr. Schmidt amazingly complains that the FTC's extended review of the acquisition left AdMob at a "significant disadvantage" competitively vs. Apple.

• While Mr. Schmidt obviously wants to misdirect attention away from Google and towards Apple, the inconvenient facts are:
  • Google, the #2 in-app mobile advertiser with ~25% share, is trying to eliminate its #1 competitor AdMob which has ~50% share -- via acquisition; 
  • Apple was not in the mobile advertising business at all until it bought distant #3 Quattro with single digit share in January;
  • Google paid AdMob an unheard of high $700m (93%) deal kill fee to protect/compensate AdMob for the high antitrust disapproval risk; and
  • Most important, Google, not Apple, is the main beneficiary of putting AdMob in FTC-review limbo, because it enables Google to gain critical market knowledge and to take share from AdMob (just like Google took big share from Yahoo by breaking up the Microsoft-Yahoo offer and by proposing the failed Google Yahoo ad agreement).

Second, Mr. Schmidt amazingly claims: "It would be better if the AdMob acquisition could be approved to see if Google can get a more competitive market on the iPhone platform."  

• Mr. Schmidt obviously thinks the FTC is stupid and clueless. 
• What he is plainly telling the FTC is that Google's  search advertising dominance determined by the DOJ, is irrelevant and should be ignored, and that what the FTC antitrust investigators really should be doing is launching an antitrust investigation of its big bad competitor Apple, which by the way Google's CEO claimed was not even a competitor to Google just a year ago. 
• Moreover, Mr. Schmidt now appears to be asserting  that the Apple iPhone platform is by itself a separate market/monopoly despite the iPhone having only ~16% share of the world smartphone market. 
• Furthermore, Mr. Schmidt must believe the FTC is both uninformed and unaware that Google's Android operating system devices outsold Apple devices in 1Q10. 
• Amazingly Mr. Schmidt is telling the FTC that it should be more interested in unofficially assisting dominant Google in taking share from new entrant Apple than the FTC should be concerned about the official merger to monopoly right in front of the FTC's noses.            

Third, and most goobristic of all, is Mr. Schmidt wagging  the antitrust finger at Apple's terms of service as "discriminatory against other partners."

• Is Mr. Schmidt having an out-of-body experience?
  • Does he think that the FTC is completely unaware of the fact that no less than five companies are currently suing Google for anti-competitive discrimination, i.e. lowering Google competitors' Google's search rank and punishing Google competitors with huge price increases? (See TradeComet, MyTriggers, Foundem, ejustice.FR and Ciao.) 
• Is Mr. Schmidt so un-self-aware that he does not see the irony and hypocrisy of complaining about discrimination by Apple when Google is the discrimination master of the Internet Universe?
  • Foundem's FCC filing shows convincingly how Google routinely discriminates in favor of Google-owned content over competitors' content. 
• Moreover, how can Google legitimately complain that Google can't get "open access" to the Apple iPhone platform, when Google denies search competitors from crawling YouTube or Google's 12 million strong digital book archive?

In short, the FTC must be shaking their heads in utter disbelief that a Fortune 200 CEO with a deal pending before the commission could be so hubristic, misleading and loose with the facts. 

• If Mr. Schmidt is trying to intimidate the FTC into not suing Google, its backfiring. Badly.