Google: Internet Advertising Monopoly?

Based on this article:

Google faces moment of truth on monopoly probe  

AFP Oct 21, 2012, 07.49AM IST

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-business/Google-faces-moment-of-truth-on-monopoly-probe/articleshow/16898241.cms 

WASHINGTON: Google faces a moment of truth in the coming weeks over a lengthy US probe into potential abuse of its Internet search dominance, amid regulatory woes on both sides of the Atlantic.
The Federal Trade Commission is widely reported to be nearing a decision on whether to pursue Google for monopoly abuses, at the same time European regulators are conducting a similar review.
At least one member of Congress is warning the FTC to be wary of meddling in Google's business, but some of Google's rivals are pressing hard for action.
Critics point out that Google controls some 70 percent of the Internet search market -- and the advertising that goes along with it -- and may exert even more power in the mobile sector by controlling the Android operating system used on two-thirds of smartphones.
"These are practices which drive up prices and drive down competition," said Ben Hammer, whose Fairsearch.org coalition includes the travel websites Expedia and Kayak, mobile phone maker Nokia, and Microsoft, a company which faced its own antitrust case over a decade ago.
Google is accused of "scraping" content from other services like travel and restaurant reviews while keeping consumers on its own sites.
It is also under fire for allegedly promoting its own services -- including travel, restaurant reviews and YouTube videos -- in its search results.
Another of Google critics' concerns is the way the company limits how advertisers can manage ads with Google and competitors.
"They remind me a lot of Microsoft in the 90s: massively arrogant, having the feeling they have the power to do anything they want," said Rob Enderle, a Silicon Valley consultant and analyst.
"Companies that get this way eventually run afoul of the government, sometimes catastrophically. They haven't been competing fairly for some time."
Google's problems are not limited to Washington.
European data protection agencies have said Google's new privacy policy does not comply with EU laws and told the US firm to fix it within months or face legal action. Google claims "that our privacy notices respect European law."
Google has also made proposals to regulators in the EU anti-trust probe into whether the Internet search giant had abused its dominant market position, which officials called "a good basis for further talks."
But in the US, a case from trade regulators would not be clear cut, say some analysts.
Danny Sullivan, who edits the blog Search Engine Land, said it is problematic for regulators to determine whether a search is "fair."
Even if Google searches favor its own sites, "it's probably not wrong," said Sullivan, who argued that the case offers a test of freedom of expression.
Sullivan said those seeking to impose "neutral" search results suggest a scary type of regulation: "It's like saying the New York Times algorithm should be decided by a government committee. Nobody should question that the government should stay out."
Last year, Google chairman Eric Schmidt told a congressional panel he rejected charges that the company "cooks" search results to favor its own services, even though some lawmakers disputed the claim.
Glenn Manishin, a Washington antitrust lawyer who represented plaintiffs in the Microsoft antitrust case, said a case against Google would be "uncharted" legal territory, and markedly different from the Microsoft case.
"There's a fundamental difference between an operating system which has the ability and technology to exclude rivals from the platform, and Internet search or search advertising," he said.
"There's nothing locking users into using Google either for search or for advertising... it's not a single highway to get to where you're going. Windows was, because it was on 95 percent of PCs. Other companies can and do enter the search market."
Manishin said antitrust law is aimed at protecting consumers, not rival companies. He said the FTC could pursue Google administratively for "unfair competition," but added legal standards are vague and the agency has never won such a case.
"If you ask for the government to intervene, you don't know what's going to happen," the attorney said. "The government may decide it will be the arbiter of what's fair and unfair, and it may be a slippery slope toward government regulation."
US Congressman Jared Polis, in an open letter to the FTC, urged the agency not to act to "compromise the important service provided by Google."
"Competition is only a click away, and there are no barriers to competition," the lawmaker said.
"The FTC should tread carefully when reviewing Google, Facebook or any other tech company, given the dynamism of our tech industry."
Many legal experts say Google would lose in the marketplace if it failed to act in consumers' interest, but Mark Patterson, a Fordham University law professor specializing in antitrust, said consumers lack the information to know how Google operates.
"What you really need to look at is how much can they manipulate their search results without consumers knowing," he said.
"Yes it's easy for consumers to switch. It's not easy for consumers to know why they should switch."

Google: Internet Advertising Monopoly?

Google has been our top choice of internet search engine for over the years. It is hard to find another search engine which as accurate as Google. Despite all of that, Google just applied a monopoly market at some point. Moreover, Google manipulate other platforms to use their search engine too, and furthermore, google made other applications which is identical to other IT firm’s application like Google Docs (identical to Microsoft Office), Google + (identical to Facebook), or Google sites (identical to Blogspot) in order to fully control the internet market.

In my opinion, Google has no power to block other search engine to get involved in the internet. The internet is free. Everyone can go in and out, sell and buy things, like or dislike things, or even share their own controversial opinion without being worried of being confronted by their oppositions. Even though Google is a very big firm, they cannot control the internet to use their search engines. But  Google shines beyond other search engines because of these several factors.

                Back to the Monopoly theory, Google are indeed, have very little subtitues. If you ask some internet users for a decent search engine, more than 6/10 of the people will state that Google is the only decent search engine they have ever used. They only use other search engine like Yahoo! Or Bing if they have other occasion other than searching and browsing. Moreover, some people who are new to the internet  dont even know other search engines than Google. Teachers usually educate their students who are new to the internet with Google search engine or Yahoo! E-mail services at first, so that the students won’t even bother to seek other search engines than Google or Yahoo!.

                Secondly, Google’s simplicity and services wins customer’s heart. Every years, internet users has boomed significantly, and this is where Google shines with their unique search engine. When i see other search engines, it’s unconvenient for new internet users. They have search settings, or filters, or whatever that confuses newbies. However, Google is very convenient and simple for them. One click away and they got what they want. Google’s spacy design catch newbies eyes too. And the most important of their uniqueness is the accuracy of the search. Google is brilliantly accurate at guessing at what people might want to search when they type something in the search box, and yet they set the searching preferences to the searcher’s country. So far, there are no other search engines that can be like Google. That is why Google is the perfect website for newcomers to study about the internet, and yet, new internet users are born each day.

Furthermore, Google colaborate their own platfrom into other platforms to influence people other from the internet. For example Android. Android platform uses their basic search engine platform to Google search engine, and their GPS system to Google maps. This indicates that Google are trying to dominate not only in the internet advertising market, but smartphones as well. They are trying to influence all of the smartphone users to depend on Google’s platforms.

One of the attempt that Google applied to conquer the internet is providing a free “office documents” application similar to Microsoft Office. Rather than buy the expensive Microsoft Office to do the office sheets, Google are providing a simple, portable, easy to distribute, and free Google Docs, which is basically the same as Microsoft Office, but in a very convenient way. They even make the work sheets become accessible with Microsoft Office so people can edit their work without internet connection. This indicates that Google are trying to take control over the office work applications which is have been controlled by Microsoft for over the years.

                In my opinion, Google’s market monopoly practice has driven nearly all the internet users to become “brainwashed” to loyal and dependent to Google. When people are loyal to a particular brand, they share their loyalty with theor relatives, and then a chain of effect will be triggered. Moreover, Google creates an internet empire which contains commonly used websites in the name of their own brand. Majority of people use internet for browsing, email, social networking, and writing ideas, and yet Google provide all of those services in their own internet world. They have Google search engine for browsing, Google mail for email, Google + for social networking (which is unfortunately aren’t as successful as other social networking websites), and Google sites for sharing ideas and essays. They provide some other internet services too such as Google Docs, Google Maps, Google image search engines, Google calendars, and others.

Apple, one of the several dominating firm, has tried to compete Google’s Google Maps GPS system. Unfortunately, Apple’s GPS system platform, Apple Maps, are receiving negative sentiments because of its faulty and inaccurate positioning system. Therefore, its is very hard to compete with Google platforms because of it’s uniqueness.

Google makes profit mainly from the advertising, but it seems people don’t know how much Google manipulate their searching result for their own profit. As it is stated in the article, Google are accused to often manipulate their search engine’s search result to their affiliate networks. They even abuses the travel or restaurant reviews to search result, and limit advertisers on how they advertise on Google.

 Because basically monopoly’s market demand curve is perfectly inelastic, Google are brave enough to do whatever it takes to gain maximum profit, even it’s inefficient for the social benefit. Even though they do so, people still using Google search engine because there are no substitue than this. The only thing that Google must fear is the government intervention or subdue attempt by other firms that want to go in the internet advertising market.

             In conclusion, Google’s monopoly practice over the internet advertising market is still intact. It is the Google’s search engine uniqueness and simplicity that attracts people. But this is inefficient because of the Google’s attempt to control over the internet in the way of manipulating their search results for their own benefits. However, no firms can object this because basically internet is a free realm. The least suggestion i can offer is that we have a new internet policy so that the search results should not be diverted. Other than this, it’s up to the government intervention to reduce the influence of Google.