Courtesy: svilen001
I’ve been reading a lot (one example) lately about possible investigations into Google for violations of the Sherman Act of 1914 (Antitrust). What I understand is that there are a number very clear cut things that companies cannot participate in. For example price fixing: A group of businesses cannot agree to charge a specific price for a product or service. This practice limits competition and is harmful to consumers.
Territory and customer restrictions is another avenue that can lead to anti-trust problems. It did for Microsoft. They got in trouble for requirements made to dealers that their contracts would be cancelled if they removed the IE logo from the desktop.
There are a number of industries that have built in exemptions to the Act.
This brings me to my confusion. I don’t understand what Google is doing wrong. I’ve seen arguments regarding Google limiting innovation, yet as I see it, their growth as a company is directly tied to the innovation of others. They provide products for free and open them up to developers via well-written API’s. They have one of the most reliable infrastructures of any company on the planet. So much so that when they appeared to have gone down in places around the U.S. a number of computer professionals initially thought their computer was to blame. The reason is that since they have been so reliable for their history, it must not be Google that’s down, it’s got to be something on my end.
Other issues that I’ve seen brought up is their domination with web advertising. As far as I can tell they aren’t requiring that anyone use only their advertisements through bullying. When I was posting ads on all my pages here I used Adsense (Google’s advertising product) I used it because I choose to. There are other advertising companies. Plenty of them in fact. There are even a lot of companies that make their livelihood by selling Adsense strategy services. Yes, they enter into agreements with sites (like Myspace) to be their only advertising source, but there are plenty of examples of someone being an exclusive provider of a service or product for another company. There are too many, but here’s the Google search (ironic, I know).
So, what’s the problem? I want to be convinced if it’s an issue, but if there’s no compelling argument or blatant example of Google going against their “Don’t be evil” mantra, then leave them well enough alone. My brain is open on this one.
–dez