On Antitrust, Is Google The Next Microsoft?

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It looks like Google may be the next big company to face the scrutiny of the government’s antitrust hit squad. Even though the company has hired new lobbyist, some worry that the company hasn’t done enough to fend off antitrust officials.

Not too long ago, nearly every move that Microsoft made seemed to draw complaints that the company was abusing its market dominance. Now another market-leading technology company is under fire in Washington as well. An unlikely combination of onetime antitrust defendants like Microsoft and AT&T and liberal consumer groups that have been their traditional antagonists are taking aim at Google.
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There is a huge diffrence between Google and Microsoft.

Google is not conducting itself in a manner to block or lockout competing search engine companies. Google does not provide the operating system base upon which all applications must run, and then engage in selling competing applications in high profit areas.... giving itself a leg up in OS interfacing in the process.

Google is making itself a conglomerate, there are no antitrust implications simply from SIZE, otherwise GM and IBM and ExxonMobil would have to have been wacked long ago.

Microsoft on the other hand NEEDS to be broken up, TODAY. And If Teddy Roosevelt were still around, he would do just that, just as he did to Standard Oil etc.... of course he would also RE-breakup Standard Oil (ExxonMobil) AGAIN as well.

But the Oil industry does make Microsoft look like a fluffy bunny in antitrust terms.
 
Google is not a trust. What is our government thinking? :rolleyes:

It's free, and there are plenty of alternatives.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Microsoft on the other hand NEEDS to be broken up, TODAY. And If Teddy Roosevelt were still around, he would do just that, just as he did to Standard Oil etc.... of course he would also RE-breakup Standard Oil (ExxonMobil) AGAIN as well.

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That is a hideously bad idea. How the heck do you break up Microsoft with out destroying it? I don't think the industry would have an easy time coping with the death of Microsoft. Windows is a standard, a necessary evil. If it is gone then Apple will take it's place, and that really would be a monopoly.
 
What is a 'liberal consumer group'? Are there also 'conservative consumer' groups and 'objectivist consumer' groups?

Google dominates the Internet search space, but its revenue is from advertising. I'm guessing that any potential antitrust investigation would focus on its advertising sales practices, rather than the search engine or their software utilities.
 
I see plenty of competition in Google's main areas of interest: Yahoo and Microsoft both compete with Google in the search arena, and there's more advertising networks than you can shake a stick at. Sure, Google currently kicks ass and doesn't even bother taking names anymore (they'll just index it later), but that's hardly antitrust.

As for Microsoft, I don't think they'd be terribly hard to break up - from what I can tell the various sides of Microsoft talk to each other about as much as separate businesses anyways. If was doing the breakup, I think I might make one company responsible for apps, and the other the operating system. And if they die, well I won't say that the industry will miss them much. I won't go into it here, because I'd likely be preaching at the choir, but Microsoft has done more than any other corporation to hinder technology, progress, and especially the internet.
 
The most successful and wealthiest technology companies in the country will continue to get "anti-trust" crap thrown at them. Why? It makes the government a LOT of money.

This is nothing more than corrupt government striking back when they don't get the bribes fulfilled like they always received from oil companies and the "good ol' boys" companies.

Tech companies like google are made by "new money" that figure they can stand up to big government. "Anti-trust" is governments way of showing them they can't.
 
I hope the government is smart enough to realize that, if they partially lost to Microsoft, they will get creamed by Google. Google provides free alternatives; Microsoft provides not-free standards. Google's monopoly is not as self-sufficient as Microsoft's. Google owns much less of their main market than Microsoft.
 
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