If Google's Upstart Competitors Aren't Afraid Of Google, Why Is Washington Upset?
from the it's-all-political dept
With Eric Schmidt in DC today to be grilled by a Senate commission about antitrust issues, it's interesting to see that Rich Skrenta, the founder/CEO of an upstart competing search engine, Blekko, come right out and tell DC to keep its hands off Google:We don’t need federal intervention to level the playing field with Google. Innovation and competition are far more powerful instruments to battle companies that have grown powerful and influential. Which has been more detrimental to Microsoft's business? The lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice in the 90s, or the innovative products Apple has brought to the marketplace?If a company is holding back innovation through market control, I'll be the first to worry about it, but I'm at a loss to see where Google's choices have directly harmed consumers. It's nice to see Skrenta making this point when it would be easy to score a cheap political point by jumping on the bandwagon. No doubt that a broken up Google would present an opportunity for Blekko to take more marketshare -- but real entrepreneurs know that getting the government to attack your competitors is no way to build a truly innovative company.
The success of Google should be applauded on Capitol Hill, not derided.
Let’s let entrepreneurs, technology and good old-fashioned innovation deal with Google. Consumers will always be the winners in that scenario.
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Filed Under: antitrust, competition, eric schmidt, rich skrenta
Companies: blekko, google
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So many wrong premises.
2nd, it's not a question as: "Which has been more detrimental to Microsoft's business? The lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice in the 90s, or the innovative products Apple has brought to the marketplace?" -- It's whether any given company is TOO BIG and controlling, period. Just because apparent "good" is resulting is no guarantee that the situation is optimal, either. Without some action sheerly because large, we'll never know what might be better.
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Re: So many wrong premises.
Second: Crap over-priced operating systems and legalistic stupidity were more detrimental to Microsoft's business than anything else ever, duh.
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Re: So many wrong premises.
In order for me to start my own sports league and to broadcast it over public airwaves and cableco infrastructure, I must go through a government established monopoly gatekeeper (broadcasting monopolies and cableco monopolies). That's not free market capitalism by a long shot. The existing status quo has a government established advantage.
Google has no such government established advantage. They play on a level playing field, if anything, the government doesn't like them.
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Re: Re: So many wrong premises.
It's why the government has established monopoly power in so many other industries. Government established monopolies minimize social benefit in favor of creating centralized benefits.
Google's innovative endeavors have created plenty of socialized benefits. The public benefits. The government sees this and angers. So what does it want to do? It wants to find ways to minimize the social benefit provided in favor of creating more centralized benefits into the hand of a few government established monopolists.
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Re: So many wrong premises.
Did you just make the argument that large companies should be forced by the government to be made smaller? When has that ever worked in the past, and what other sectors do you see this being applied?
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Microsoft is pushing at the state level, the federal level and the international level to stop microsoft. The SCO Unix lawsuit, EU antitrust, US antitrust, and state level laws banning imports into the US can all be traced back to microsoft.
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I think this is a typo on your part, however it's funny because it's true.
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I know Blumenthal is one already.
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Err, shouldn't that be "stop Google"?
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MS Lawsuit
Now if we can just get rid of software patents.
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Re: MS Lawsuit
" .... without the fed lawsuit as the tactic Gates employed would have driven Apple out of business ..."
Google it ' Bill gates invests in Apple '
If not for Bill Gates Apple would be out of business $ 150 million of MS / Gates monies help Apple out of a bind.
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Re: MS Lawsuit
Can you give some examples of this superior technology? Honestly, I haven't heard of it. I KNOW you aren't talking about OS/2 or AmiDOS.
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http://www.benedelman.org/news/092011-1.html
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Re: Ze Eyes!
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Re: the real Ben Edelman
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The one point of it I will comment on is the bit in there where you're talking about lock in. The Android platform most certainly NOT locking all customers into using Google search, as proven by Verizon using Bing search on the middle and lower tier Android phones almost from the beginning, and also not allowing you to choose to use another engine (may have changed since last time I looked).
The only VZN Android phones to use Google search by default were and I believe still are the "Droid" line of phones, and or any one of them using stock Android.
My 2 cents.
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point-by-point on Google's harm to advertisers
Incoherent one: The question isn't whether you know how to change Firefox defaults, but whether users actually do change search defaults. If users overwhelmingly stick with Google -- and all evidence is that they do and that they have -- then advertisers have to buy placements on Google; no competitor can offer a comparable service. Competition is not one click away from an advertiser's perspective. What exactly is an advertiser supposed to do if the advertiser wants paid search traffic but doesn't want to buy from Google?
As to Chrome favoring Google: One can suggest that that's Google's prerogative as maker of Chrome. But how much may Chrome favor Google? In one of the articles I linked, I showed Chrome autocompleting a direct navigation attempt in a way that turned the direct navigation into a search (at Google) -- with a top-most listing being, predictably, an ad. The result is to confront a user with ads when the user tries to run a search. It's clear why this is in Google's interest -- more ad clicks, more money. But I don't know why this would be in users' interest. And it's clearly not in the advertiser's interest; the advertiser would much prefer to get that user for free, than to have the user diverted to Google where the user may click an ad or even end up at a competitor's site.
Anonymous Coward (7:49am) says I'm "wrong" about all-or-nothing placements in Search Network. AC, if you claim this is so easy, can you link to a screenshot or help page showing how an advertiser can buy just some of Google Search Network without accepting the undesirable parts of Search Network that I describe in my article? I think you'll find that it's truly not as easy as you suggest. Content Network has fine source selection, but Search Network does not.
Finally, Anonymous Coward (7:49am) suggests a manual export from AdWords to CSV (or similar) and then an import into a competing platform (like AdCenter/Yahoo). I agree that that's possible. But one wouldn't want to do that every day. Nor can that process readily be automated. In contrast, were it not for Google's prohibition on use of AdWords API to copy/synchronize campaigns, advertisers could have easy one-click or even zero-click (automatic) copying between ad platforms. Makers of PPC management software tell me that this is the single most-requested feature their customers want. But Google specifically bans this feature. Do you see any plausible pro-competitive justification for the ban? As I mentioned in the article, a Google exec once told me "we don't have to make it easy" -- confirming my long-held suspicion that Google is intentionally making data portability difficult, in this area, in order to hinder use of competing services and strengthen Google's market position. I believe that's contrary to well-established principles of antitrust law.
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Re: point-by-point on Google's harm to advertisers
Also, why is it ok to tell a company how to design their own product? If google chrome wants to prefer google stuff, let them. It is their product to do with as they please. If I don't like it, there are plenty of other great browsers out there to use.
I am sure no one is forced to use google products, ads, etc. They do so, in my opinion, because its better for them or makes them more money.
I believe the gov should not get involved. It is always tough to beat the #1. However, if you do it the right way. In this case through innovation, everyone wins.
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Re: point-by-point on Google's harm to advertisers
I don't see it.
2) You do understand again that there are 2 versions of Google-Chrome, one is Chrome and the other is Chromiun the one which a lot of others use and can be modified, so Google is basically giving away the tools to others to compete with itself it is that not shocking?
3) Banning tools to help advertisers move elsewhere.
Really only the big boys can write a javascript line of code that would take 3 to 5 lines? Not to mention one can use Python, Bash, Batch(in Windows), it is not that hard actually.
Also for the programming challenged there are action-recorders in the market that do that(e.g. iMacros or the likes of it).
http://wiki.imacros.net/Sample_Code
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Logic and facts will get you nowhere.
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as far as 'let entrepreneurs, technology and good old-fashioned innovation deal with Google', the same should apply to the entertainment industries. what a shame they are so useless and have such an inferiority complex that they cant deal with any of these things, have to rely on paying out a fortune in bribes and lobbying to keep their old business models, withhold payments from those they are supposed to represent, whilst lining the execs pockets only.
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Mark my words, just like what the government did for so many other industries (from government established taxi cab monopolies to government established broadcasting monopolies to government established cableco monopolies to government established mailbox delivery monopolies to government established electricity delivery monopolies with a company that pays no taxes, to government established intellectual property monopolies, to government established gambling and liquor monopolies and even its attempts to provide for the government establishment of online gambling monopolies), the government wants to do here exactly what it did to so many other industries. It wants to provide someone with a government established monopoly. It's itching to do this, it's been wanting to do this for a while, it can't wait. It wants to do exactly this, it wants to provide for the government establishment of search engine monopolies. This is its goal, the same exact goal it accomplished in SO MANY other industries.
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I listed a few.
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Cheaters!
Because of Google's long term thinking, they now have an unfair advantage against short-sighted corps.
Won't somebody please think of the golden parachutes?!
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Because Microsoft is upset.
Washington does not give a flying flip about Blekko, but it does care what Microsoft wants.
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Silly mortals
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Maybe those Republicans are right about Washington making it so hard to do business with their laws and rules it forces some to just go elsewhere.
Leave Google alone assholes !!!!
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There are no American car manufacturers investing in self-driving cars at the moment, why is that the only prototype representing American business comes from Google?
Shouldn't GM or Ford be the ones doing research on that crap?
Probably if it was not Google paying for that only Europeans would have that technology advanced enough to do something, along with the Chinese.
It is just mind boggling since the American government is trying hard to push down the throats of everyone that IP is the future and they need to be protected, but in reality what they are doing is giving others the tools to hammer down America even further since nobody in America seems willing to do even research and because of strong IP constraints little people can't push into the market without great risks of liability.
Thanak you Washington you have destroyed America, you just didn't realize it yet.
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Beer
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This whole Google thing is similar -- a company wants to give "product" away and make money around the edges, while all those competitors want to sell "product" and just want Google to go away so they can go back to making money selling tired old ideas.
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High quality only
I really like the part in the list of "Benedelmans" that says that if Google was in a competitive marketplace they would have to provide "high-quality, trustworthy traffic." Basically Google would somehow have to ensure that only people with money, willing and ready to buy would respond to ads; and somehow to ensure that all the people who filled that category would receive the ads. I don't think I like the idea of anyone, especially advertisers knowing everything I want, how much money I have, and whether I am ready to buy. I don't mind them knowing which ads I read though, but its a fine line between privacy invasion and doing their job.
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Re: High quality only
Also complaining that Google isnt fair because they are good at what they do is a bad argument. It isnt default that cause this, IE is windows default browser and Bing is IEs default search engine. Guess what, first thing I do when I get new PC? I change it to Google because Google works best.
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