DoubleClick

I must admit I have been amused watching the market's angst over trying to figure out if Google's growth is slowing down given that Comscore has reported that paid clicks have fallen 3% from January to February of this year.

First, I am amused because Comscore also showed that Google gained market share during that same period from 59.2% from 58.5%. 

In my previous blog post I flagged a Reuters article that highlighted that Google asked its shareholders to oppose a shareholder vote that Google should abide by net neutrality itself, even though it is the single biggest proponent of mandating net neutrality for all its competitors -- on the planet.

Today I came across a quote in Investors Business Daily's section on quotes, "Wisdom to Live By" and found one that the radically-liberal founders of Google should ponder:

• "Its not fair to ask others to do what you are unwilling to do yourself."  Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady to the ultimate uber-liberal Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Alas, I don't hold out much hope that Google will ever see this as a double standard because they are so committed to Google's Motto: "Don't be evil" and because they like to insinuate that most every other corporation is evil...

If you think I am being "unfair" in labeling Google's founders radically-liberal, check out The Burning Man Festival gathering that Google's founders avidly and regularly have attended.

Per Reuters, Google's board is recommending that its investors vote against a shareholder proposal from the New York City Employee Retirement System that asks Google to commit to abiding by Net Neutrality.

Apparently, Yahoo is trying to douse itself with some "Microsoft-repellant" in joining Google's OpenSocial allance and forming a non-profit OpenSocial Foundation with Google and MySpace.

While Yahoo's OpenSocial press release never mentioned Microsoft, the impetus for this change of heart by Yahoo was clearly a way to "dis" Microsoft and make Yahoo marginally less attractive to Microsoft.

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt must have an extremely dry sense of humor.

• He recently told reporters with a straight face that: "We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft"... "We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be."  
  • This guy could win "Last Comic Standing!"
  • Give him an Oscar! an Emmy! any acting award for communicating that Google's deep heartfelt concern is only for the Internet and its openness.... and of course for "the children," rainbows, puppies, Moms, apple pie and all humankind....
    • Google has now transcended any self interest at all in a Microsoft-Yahoo hook-up... they have become virtual goodness, wholesomeness, and cookie smells.. in all that they do...  ooooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm......

New evidence exposes that Google has much more serious financial conflicts of interest and is much less of an "honest broker" of online advertising than most appreciate. 

Kudos to CNET's article "YouTube's expanded API not for everybody" which exposes Google's hypocrisy in  pushing for everyone else BUT Google-YouTube to have open and non-discriminatory access to their networks. (Remember: Google is leading the Open Internet Coalition to mandate net neutrality for all broadband providers; Google is leading the wireless open access push for more open wireless APIs; and Google asked the court to extend Microsoft's decree and keep their API's open.)

It is telling that Google-YouTube's API (Application Programming Interface) terms of service BLOCKS any commercial competitor seeking to generate advertising from using the API.

• This is an interesting discriminatory position for Google-YouTube which supposedly subscribes to the information commons philosophy of the Open Internet and which also happens to have the dominant share of video streaming market per ComScore (Google-YouTube has seven times the viewer share as any other video-streaming provider.)

Bottom line: What's good for Google is not good for the Gander.

• Google believes it is "special,"  and that one set of rules should apply to Google and its wholly-owned companies like YouTube, and another set of much more onerous rules should apply to all of their potential competitors.   

EU clearance of the Google-DoubleClick merger is a much bigger deal for Google than the economy-obsessed marketplace appreciates.

Garret Rogers of Googling Google on ZDnet has an illuminating post: "Google gives developers access to your contacts."

• While Google extols the benefits of its "open" system it is irresponsibly silent on how it allows third parties "open access" to one of users most intimate and private treasures of information -- ones private contacts.
  • Doesn't law enforcement have to get a court authorized subpoena to see this type of private information?
  • Didn't Facebook just get whacked by users and privacy advocates for sharing access to contact lists without a users explicit permission?  

This is another big evidence point of a long and continued cavalier attitude to users privacy by Google (read on if you doubt this is a pattern -- these posts have most all the relevant links to all the mainstream articles on Google's cavalier attitude to Privacy):

There were three proverbial "elephants in the room" that the media and analysts largely missed in discussing Google's stock slide and recent concern over a slow-down in paid clicks. 

Elephant #1 -- Click Fraud: 

I was stunned that no one connected-the-dots with the slow down in paid clicks with Google and Yahoo's "dirty little secret" of addressing raging click fraud.