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You are hereDOJ-FTC breaking up Google's Silicon Valley Keiretsu
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2010-04-01 20:10
FTC antitrust concerns over "inter-locking-directorates" reportedly have forced Kleiner-Perkins' John Doerr, to step down from Amazon's board, because he is also on the board of Amazon, a major book and cloud-computing competitor of Google -- per Miguel Helft's and Brad Stone's scoop at the New York Times Bits post. This is the third (Amazon, Apple, Yahoo) too-cozy-for-antitrust-authorities, Keiretsu-like, Google business relationship that either the DOJ or FTC apparently have broken up.
Three different interventions by antitrust authorities involving Google's ties with three different Fortune 500 companies in eighteen months constitutes a pattern and underscores the depth and breadth of antitrust concerns that U.S. antitrust authorities have about Google.
Now, let's get back to Google's Silicon Valley Keiretsu relationships with Amazon, Apple and Yahoo. 1. Google-Amazon: Like Google CEO Eric Schmidt was forced by the FTC to resign from Apple's board, FTC pressure apparently has forced John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins to resign from Amazon's Board... even though another Kleiner-Perkins Partner of Doerr's, Bing Gordon, will remain on Amazon's Board.
2. Google-Apple: While Google's CEO Eric Schmidt was forced by the FTC to resign from the Apple Board last summer, and Apple Director, Arthur Levinson, resigned from Google's board last fall under FTC pressure, Apple Director Al Gore remains a Senior Advisor to Google. 3. Google-Yahoo: The ties between Google's founders and Yahoo's founders, all Stanford alums, are longstanding and deep as most all the books on Google document. The Keiretsu relationship was so strong in fact, that when Yahoo founder Jerry Yang wanted to thwart a buyout offer from Microsoft in the spring of 2008, Yahoo arranged for Google to swoop in as a "white knight" and offer an alternative to Microsoft in the form of an Ad Agreement between the #1 and #2 search advertising competitors.
In sum, Google's deep and ongoing Keiretsu-like relationships remain problematic for antitrust authorities. I predict even more Google Keiretsu relationships will be of concern to antitrust authorities going forward. Moreover, all this cumulative, augmentative, and serious antitrust investigation by multiple antitrust authorities suggests an increased liklihood that:
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