You are here Antitrust
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-08-02 18:26
The outrage over Google-Youtube's complicity in rampant content theft and piracy continues to spread around the world.
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"A coalition of Japanese television, music and film companies slammed YouTube Thursday, saying the online video sharing service was not doing enough to rid the site of cartoons and other clips that infringe copyright." ...
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"There is no middle ground," Matsutake said. "We demand that all copyrighted material be removed immediately."
Let's focus on the corporate scofflaw pattern here: American, Japanese, and European content owners accross a wide swath of content industries are all outraged and suing Google for theft.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-08-02 09:27
Johna Till Johnson of Network World, has got Google's number in the article "Net Neutrality? Google, go first!"
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"Forget "don't be evil" -- Google's real motto is: "Just trust us (and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain).""
"Sorry, fellas, I'm not the trusting sort. And I always worry about the man behind the curtain. The reality behind the propaganda is this: The "open" company's considerable fortunes are based around the world's most proprietary search engine. And as for "neutral" -- try Googling Google, and you may notice something surprising: very few negative comments on the company pop up. Odd, no?"
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-08-01 19:04
For those following the FTC's Google-DoubleClick merger review (and whether my prediction in my Googleopoly.net white paper that the FTC will block this merger is on the mark), this link to an article called "Google's Killer App" is a current and real life case study of how Google anti-competitively forecloses competition in the markets adjacent to them.
This excellent case study article is by Brandt Dainow, a web analytics competitor to Google who has conceded that:
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-07-27 10:11
It is clear that "open access" is not a true "principle" for eBay-Skype, but a self-serving scheme by eBay to cloak their obvious "private interest" behind the greater "public interest."
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If "open access" was a true "principle" to eBay-skype,they would abide by it in their own business, and lead by example, but alas they don't.
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They hypocritically do the exact opposite.
Open access to eBay-Skype is a blatant double standard where eBay wants government to regulate their competitors to eBay-Skype's commercial advantage, but do not want the principle applied to eBay-Skype.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-25 12:23
Great satire is rare.
Please read it and laugh out loud and shout ouch!
The pen is surely mightier than the algorithm.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-07-20 12:37
The antitrust relevance of yesterday's New York Times reported quote: " ...marketers increasingly want to combine their purchases of search and display advertising." has really quite profound implications for the pending Google-Double-Click deal.
What that quote does is zero in on what really matters to FTC antitrust authorities -- how would the transaction actually change the current competitive dynamic, or more specifically, how would the merger "substantially lessen competition," which is the legal standard for approving/disapproving mergers.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-18 18:39
Google tries to maintain that search and display advertising are separate markets and not direct competitors.
It appears Yahoo would beg to differ.
Today's New York Times reported:
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"...Yahoo recently shook up its ad sales force, combining into a single unit its search advertising and display advertising."
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"Mr. Barry said that the reorganization would probably help Yahoo in the long term, as marketers increasingly want to combine their purchases of search and display advertising." [bold added]
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-18 12:21
Please don't miss Holman Jenkin's great Wall Street Journal editorial on Google: "Sort of Evil."
I particularly like his new term for net neutrality/open access regulation: "business model chauvinism." Dead on.
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Google is lobbying for laws and regulations which will advantage their business model and further their dominance of Internet advertising, and also to "block, degrade and impair" any other business model from competing with Google.
He also points the spotlight on what Google is really doing in organizing groups to view broadband companies as the big public enemy for things they might do in the future, and how that conveniently distracts people from scrutinizing Google's own increasing dominance of online advertising and the business model of the Internet.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-07-17 19:12
It didn't take long for the Empire to Strike back! Shortly after the release of Googleopoly, Ed Black, President and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which represents Google, put out a critical press release on my Googleopoly white paper entitled: "Merger Report Unconvincing."
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As I predicted on my blog this morning:"I expect to be attacked personally for my analysis and conclusions here, just like I was attacked by Bernie Ebbers and WorldCom as "the idiot Washington analyst" for having the audacity to be the only analyst in the country willing to predict, and stick to my guns, that the government would block the WorldCom-Sprint merger."
As expected they tried to discredit the messenger because they don't like the message. Standard operating procedure from my debate opponents.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-07-17 09:52
My detailed analysis over the last several weeks leads me to believe that the FTC is likely to block the Google-DoubleClick merger because it will enable Google to dominate online advertising and dramatically increase the opportunity for market collusion and price manipulation in the market for consumer click data, ad-performance tools, ad-brokering and ad-exchanges.
Antitrust is fact-specific and evidence-driven. To understand the true antitrust outlook for a merger one needs to become familiar with the core facts of the case. To date, media and investment coverage of this merger has been remarkably superficial.
I see three big takeaways from my white paper.
First, the more people learn about this merger the more concern they will develop.
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