DoubleClick

Investors Business Daily and Pete Barlas had a super antitrust scoop today embedded in its article "Video, Cell, Display Ads get More Google Focus".

The article quoted "Google product manager" Susan Wojcicki, (who also just recently married Google co-founder Sergey Brin), candidly defining the online ad market to reporters.

• Her blunt public market defintion must have Google's antitrust lawyers absolutely cringing and muttering expletive deleteds.

During a meeting with reporters, IBD quoted Ms. Wojcicki saying:

It seems that our friends up North may also be concerned about the anti-competitive impact of the Google-Double-Click merger.

CIPPIC, the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, is requesting that the Canadian authorities review the Google-Double-Click merger to determine if it is anti-competitive.

• Seems from their filing that they have similar concerns as the FTC and the EC.
• Could this be evidence of momentum in the growing concern over this merger? Yep. 

I've done a lot of work on the facts surrounding this merger case and am very confident that the more authorities learn about the facts of the case -- the more concerned and troubled they will get about the profound and broad implications this merger portends for the future of the Internet business model for accessing content.

The outrage over Google-Youtube's complicity in rampant content theft and piracy continues to spread around the world.

• As reported by the AP in "Youtube blasted over copyright issues": 
• "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." ...
• "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.

Johna Till Johnson of Network World, has got Google's number in the article "Net Neutrality? Google, go first!"

• "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?"

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.

• Or in other words, this article raises the question: can "free" ever be a bad thing or anti-competitive?

This excellent case study article is by Brandt Dainow, a web analytics competitor to Google who has conceded that:

 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."

• 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.
• 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.

Great satire is rare.

• Today's Wall Street Journal Editorial satire on Google entitled "Search and Destroy by Holman Jenkins" is truly GREAT satire.

Please read it and laugh out loud and shout ouch!

The pen is surely mightier than the algorithm.

The Precursorblog was shut down for most of today because we were hit by yet another targeted and malicious denial-of-service attack.

• March 2nd of this year we were shut down for a half day by a different kind of denial-of-service attack.

It appears that some net neutrality zealots may "say" they oppose any "blocking, degrading or impairing" of access to any Internet content -- but I guess that only applies to people who agree with them.

Last time this happened, I appealed to Moveon.org's, SaveTheInternet and FreePress to denounce this attack on free speech, but alas, they said nothing.

You can tell a lot about the true soul of people by how they treat the vulnerable and disadvantaged; do they naturally seek to help and protect those in need or do they instinctively seek to exploit others weaknesses for their own monetary or other gain?

• Or after a disaster, do people help with supplies, water, and a helping hand or do they opportunistically price gouge or seek to make a quick buck off of others misfortune? 

Despite Google's infamous words in its "Don't be evil" motto, its actions recently in dealing with the job-loss ravaged town of Lenoir, North Carolina gives us a sad and disappointing glimpse into the real soul of Google -- the Silicon Valley titan and leading brand in the world.

BusinessWeek just published an outstanding government/human interest story called: "The High Cost of Wooing Google" where it chronicles the story of how Google exploited the "down-on-its-luck" town of Lenoir, North Carolina with hardball negotiating tactics to extract :  "a package of tax breaks, infrastructure upgrades, and other goodies valued at $212 million over 30 years, or more than $1million for each of the 210 jobs Google said it eventually hoped to create in Lenoir."

The BusinessWeek article continued:

Anyone who hasn't read Google's letter to the FCC today  on the 700 MHz auction -- you have to -- its an absolute hoot! 

• I am amazed that a company so rich and successful in business could be so arrogant, impolitic, and ham-handed in Washington!  

First Google, despite what you may think, the US Government and FCC policy is not "for sale."  (And even if you think it is, at least try to be less obvious about your cynicism in public.)

• Does Google actually think "committing" to a minimum bid of $4.6B in the 700 MHz auction in return for its demands for a change in the 1993 auction law is somehow acceptable behavior for a publicly-traded company?
• Google is crassly and ham-handedly saying that their opening bid to effectively "buy" FCC policy starts at $4.6B!
• Hello Google! You "bid" at the spectrum auction not at the FCC for policy favors. One type of "bidding" is perfectly legal the other is not.
• As only dotcom billionaires can do, Google is disrespecting the FCC as just another type of "hired help" where it just needs to negotiate their "price."
• Any supporters of Google should be mortified at Google's disrespect for, and cheapening of the FCC policy process. Google should be ashamed and embarassed by this crass letter and tactic.  
• (It seems that Google is so used to buying off content providers that sue them for IP theft with "revenue sharing arrangements" that they seem to think they can buy-off whomever they want.)   

Second, the demand in their letter oozes with arrogance. Let's parse the final and operative sentence of Google's letter to see just how arrogant.