December, 2008

I consider myself of like mind with my friend Adam Theirer of PFF on most all issues of substance, however, I must take strong exception to his misguided take on Google and Googlephobia. 

In Adam's post "Googlephobia: Part 6 - the Left Begin to Turn on Google":

"On Nov. 17, Google began running ads on Google Finance, a financial-news site, and said it would soon start showing ads to some users of its Google News service as well." That was the big news in the Wall Street Journal's front page story "Google gears down for tougher times."

Is Google, which owns the world's largest Internet audience, with over 700 million users, a direct competitor to all media? You bet!

The anticompetitive significance and conflicts of interest in what Google is now doing are very large.

To date Google lulled its competitors into a false sense of security in building an audience for Google News and Google Finance but not directly competing with Google's supposed media partners for online ads.

Thanks to Ouriel Ohayon"s post onTechcrunch which flagged FaberNovel's excellent 34 page presentation on "Everything you wanted to know about Google."

I study them closely and I found it to be very "accessible and useful." :)

Sandy Litvack, the DOJ's outside counsel on Google-Yahoo told AmLawDaily that the case the DOJ was prepared to file against Google-Yahoo was far more serious and sweeping than previously thought or known.

• "The never-filed government complaint would have charged that the agreement violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Litvack tells the Am Law Daily in one of his first interviews since the companies canned the venture. Section 1 bans agreements that restrain trade unreasonably. Section 2 makes it unlawful for a company to monopolize or attempt to monopolize trade."
• ""It would have ended up also alleging that Google had a monopoly and that [the advertising pact] would have furthered their monopoly," Litvack says."

Below is the press release for the first-ever research study of U.S. Consumer Internet Usage and Cost which I authored.

The 27 page research study can be accessed at this link:

• http://www.netcompetition.org/study_of_google_internet_usage_costs2.pdf 

For Immediate Release December 4, 2008

Contact: Scott Cleland 703-217-2407 

First-Ever Study of U.S. Consumer Internet Usage and Cost Finds

Tribune's bankruptcy is fresh evidence that the recession is accelerating the demise of journalism precipitated in large part by the advent of the Internet. And where is the Internet taking the journalism profession and business? Not towards the utopian citizen journalism of conventional wisdom, but inexorably towards the gravitational pull of the black hole of the Internet -- scale.  

• To understand the future of the journalism business, and most content businesses for that matter, one has to understand The Internet Black Hole of Scale which is comprised of:
  • Audience size and reach:
  • Advertiser network breadth and depth;
  • Publishing breadth, depth and timeliness;
  • Sales/targetting data volume, integration and specificity; and
  • Infrastructure platform economies of scale and scope.  

So why can't the journalism profession/business compete long-term with The Black Hole of Internet Scale?

Thanks to the Guardian for an illuminating and not-to-be-missed interview with one of the two designers of the Internet, Google's Vint Cerf, who also  served as the first President of the Internet Society, and as a past Chairman of ICANN.

Mr. Cerf's take on the prospects for cleaning up the Internet: 

• "It's every man for himself," he says, grinning. "In the end, it seems every machine has to defend itself. The internet was designed that way."  
• "...every machine that can be compromised is a potential hazard. A machine that was OK yesterday is certainly not OK today: it may have ingested an infected memory stick...."
• "My bias right now tends to be 'It's every man for himself' - you need to be suspicious whether you're inside the trusted cloud or not, and when it fails, the house of cards tends to collapse."

On the security/privacy flaw inherent in the Internet's design:

Building on my previous post: "Internet Co-designer: "It's every man for himself," the Internet's co-designer, Google's Vint Cerf, made a similarly ominous comment about the future of the Internet to the New York Times last week.

In John Markoff's outstanding front page NYT article: "Thieves winning online war, maybe on your computer" the Internet's co-designer painted a bleak portrait of the safety and security of the Internet going forward.  

Please read Randy May's outstanding op ed in Legal Times: "Don't foil the Digital Age." It has great perspective and wisdom.

Randy May is President of the Free State Foundation, a market oriented think tank.  

Congrats to George Ou of ITIF for the single best and most comprehensive analysis of Network Management that I have seen: "Managing Broadband Networks: A Policymakers Guide." (link here.)

• The timing and the clarity of thought of this 58-page report and 5-page executive summary, are perfect for both the Obama Transition Team, upcoming nominees for FCC Chairman/Commissioners, and everyone active in the debate -- for that matter.  

George Ou and Bob Atkinson were ambitious: "By providing policymakers with a guide to how broadband networks and the applications that run on them wok, the authors hope to help change the nature of this debate."