Three times in the past month, government agencies have targeted Google for antitrust reviews.

[ensho]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/06/AR2009060600056.html

Google Says It's Actually Quite Small


Three times in the past month, government agencies have targeted Google for antitrust reviews. An outstanding private lawsuit alleges that Google tried to kill a business-to-business search engine with predatory pricing. And during the waning months of the Bush administration, soon-to-be Obama antitrust chief Christine Varney declared that Google "has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising." Last month she asserted that the Bush administration had been too lax in combating monopolistic behavior and that the Obama Justice Department would no longer "stand on the sidelines."

That should explain why Dana Wagner, a former Department of Justice antitrust lawyer hired by Google just last year, is rapidly becoming one of the company's public faces. Along with Adam Kovacevich, a company public-policy spokesman, Wagner has been talking to advertising clients, public officials, reporters and academics in an effort to diffuse the impression that Google has a competition law problem.

As might be expected, Google's presentation highlights the company's many good works and "don't be evil" corporate philosophy. But there's another element at front and center of the presentation: According to Warner and Kovacevich, their company holds only a 2.66 percent share of its total market.

If that number seems low for the runaway success story of the Internet age, Google wants you to believe that it's just a question of market definition. Google rejects the idea that it's in the search advertising business, an industry in which it holds more than a 70 percent share of revenue. Instead, the company says that its competition is all advertising, a category broad enough to include newspaper, radio and highway billboards. Google's argument is not simply that it's not a big bully. If you believe the company, it's not even that big.
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I've always avoided using google and from the time of my first pc I've used Metacrawler.

google never smelled right to me.

Metacrawler retrieves info from all the search engines including google but not to the advantage of google.

I debated about mentioning Metacrawler in case google would attack them in some way. have I gone paranoid?

[w4rma]

1. I agree with Google's arguments. (nt)

[OKNancy]

2. Google is an outstanding service, and I can't imagine

life without it. If other businesses want more share.. improve their product.

[Doremus]

3. Yeah, we finally have an admin willing to enforce antitrust laws

They walk right past

Retail behemoths like Wal-Mart
Communications giants (take your pick)
Healthcare conglomerates
etc etc etc

to knock on Google's door?

<face palm>

[patrice]

4. Knowledge = Freedom