Piracy

Google opposes the Senate PROTECT IP Act and the House SOPA bill because these anti-piracy bills expose Google's substantial piracy liability.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here on "Google's Piracy Liability."

Pending anti-piracy legislation (Senate: PROTECT IP, House: SOPA) is very likely to become law in 2012.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here to learn why, and why it is important.

A Google engineer's rant about how Google does not "get" platforms creates the opportunity to learn why Google does not aspire to be a platform like its competitors do.

• See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here: "Why Google's not a Platform."

Given that Apple and Google are the #1 and #2 most valuable brands in the world and that Google has invaded all of Apple’s markets in the last few years as a new competitor, it is illuminating and instructive to compare and contrast the radically different visions, values, and standards, of Apple’s former leader Steve Jobs and Google’s current CEO Larry Page.

• See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post: "Jobs' Apple Standard vs. Page's Google Standard" here.

Much of Google's claimed innovation actually depends upon anti-competitive infringement of others property and privacy.

• See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post: Google's "Infringenovation" Secrets here.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist blog on Google's disingenuous free market charm offensive at the Heritage Foundation today -- here.

See my Forbes post "Google 21st Century Robber Baron" which briefly tells the story of Google's Robber Baron rap sheet, in advance of Google's Wednesday Senate antitrust hearing.

• The post is documented with 79 links to the supporting evidence.

The post also explains why Google's Board of Directors have been AWOL while all this scofflaw behavior has been going on.

Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, it is a real pleasure to be here today, and thank you again for not issuing that formal subpoena you had to threaten in order to compel us to testify.

Let me begin my testimony by taking this opportunity to divert the media’s attention from this hearing by making a series of Google public announcements that our news algorithms predict will bury news of today’s hearing on the second page of most search results.

I am now also a contributor for Forbes writing the Tech Capitalist blog:

• Click here for my first post: Why Motorola's Patent Play Backfires.

The DOJ's very tough enforcement agreement to not criminally prosecute Google for knowingly promoting illegal prescription drug trafficking for six years has many under-appreciated implications for Google's business and brand going forward.(See the DOJ-Google Agreement here and the DOJ's release here.)

• Simply this is a criminal non-prosecution agreement not resolution of a civil case because:
  • Only the criminal statutes that were violated authorize a $500m forfeiture penalty; and
  • The agreement explicitly empowers the Government to criminally prosecute Google at its sole discretion, if it believes Google has violated the agreement.
• In effect, this is a criminal plea bargain where Google agrees to a huge fine, cooperation with the government's ongoing investigations, and two years of probation in return for no criminal prosecution of Google.
  • Reading between the lines, the Government's undercover "sting operation" must have uncovered exceptionally incriminating and embarrassing evidence that Google did not want exposed in a long public criminal trial.