Why Google lost the formal debate over its ethics — And a compendium of Google’s ethical lapses
November 28, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Privacy, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Society/Culture, Technology, The Law | 1 Comment
-By Scott Cleland
Google effectively lost its first formal debate over whether “Google violates its own ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto” at the Rosenkranz Foundation’s Oxford-style debate in New York City, November 18. (Transcript here)
Before the debate the audience was polled and voted 21% against Google and 48% for Google; after gathering additional insight from the debate, 47% voted against Google and 47% voted for Google. Apparently, most all of the undecideds voted against Google — that Google violated their own ‘don’t be evil’ motto.
What does this mean?
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An Unrepentant Google Basically Taunts DOJ/State AGs to File an Antitrust Suit in the Future
November 13, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Society/Culture, Technology | No Comments
-By Scott Cleland
Google remains its own worst enemy
After dodging a certain DOJ antitrust suit from the most lenient antitrust enforcer in the modern era by withdrawing from the Yahoo ad agreement, Google’s CEO essentially spit at DOJ/State AG prosecutors by publicly and gratuitously saying: Google would have beaten the DOJ in court, nothing has changed, and that they were happy they reached out to Yahoo.
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Google Proves Crime Does Pay – If You Have Enough Market Power
November 2, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Technology | No Comments
-By Scott Cleland
Google, in settling with authors/publishers for $125m in their copyright infringement lawsuits, has cleverly leveraged its market power to tip, and lock in, another Internet segment to de facto Google monopoly control — access to most of the world’s books online. The untold story here is how this settlement:
- Enthrones Google as the de facto gatekeeper to access most of the world’s books online;
- Establishes a “new model” for online content distribution;
- Attempts to set precedent that leveraging market power to extract monopoly rents in an adjacent market is OK; and
- Positions Google to become the world’s omni-platform for media distribution that will wipe out traditional media competition, unless antitrust enforcement ensures media distribution competition survives.
Why does crime pay for Google?
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What Google earnings say about Google-Yahoo; pricing power & a ‘derivative problem’
October 21, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, News, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Technology | No Comments
-By Scott Cleland
Google’s earnings provide an excellent window into why the DOJ has serious antitrust concerns with the proposed ad partnership between Google and Yahoo.
Google’s discussion of its 4Q08 earnings provides DOJ with substantial fresh evidence that Google is:
- Exercising substantial pricing power;
- Not running fair and competitive ‘auctions’; and
- Anti-competitively self-dealing.
I. Pricing Power Evidence:
Any economist will explain revenue is simply volume times price. In 4Q08, virtually all of Google’s revenues continued to come from search monetization. Google reported that its ‘volume’ i.e. “aggregate paid clicks,” “increased approximately 18%” over 3Q07. Google reported that ‘revenues’ increased by 31% over 3Q07.
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Why eBay’s deals stoke Google-Yahoo investigation fire — less competition among friends?
October 12, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Scott Cleland, Society/Culture, Technology | No Comments
-By Scott Cleland
Just when the DOJ is investigating if the Google-Yahoo ad partnership is anti-competitive, eBay bursts onto the antitrust stage with “investigate us too!” acquisitions of Bill Me Later and more classified ad businesses. (See NYT article and post, and WSJ article for excellent background.)
Why are the eBay acquisitions relevant to the Google-Yahoo investigation?
First, they spotlight how dominant and incestuously interdependent the primary Internet players are.