You are here

Hypocrisy watch: Google-eBay fight over who can discriminate more on MySpace

Today's WSJ article: "MySpace pact with Google hits a snag" is a helpful reminder of the competition double standard and hypocrisy of net neutrality proponents Google and eBay.

Google the dominant search gatekeeper with 47% share and rising is the world's leading Internet access technology. They have a pact with Myspace, one of the fastest growing sites on the planet that would pay MySpace's News Corp. $900m for placing Google's search on MySpace.

  • While this business practice is perfectly legal and above board, it is precisely the type of business arrangement that Google has outrageously mischaracterized as "discrimination" and is seeking to make illegal for its broadband competitors.

 Meanwhile, the pact is supposedly hung up because MySpace would still like to have a "discrimnation" deal with eBay too, where MySpace users could use post eBay auctions on their MySpace page. But Google only likes "discrimination" that is in its favor.

Listen to a priceless quote from the WSj article today:

  • "Google isn't likely to favor any deal that promotes eBay services that compete with their own."
    • Yep that sums it up Google's real belief in "neutrality." 

How does Google explain their attempt to "block, degrade and impair" eBay's ability to easily reach Myspace consumers is not precisely the net neutrality "discrimination" problem that they want to ban?