Comments on: DOJ lays out concerns to Yahoo and Google, no lawsuit threats yet

Federal antitrust regulators lay out their concerns about the two companies' search advertising deal, but no threats of lawsuits loom.

[Sweetpatootie]

These guys ALREADY have a monopoly which is SUPPOSED to be illegal and anti-competitive! If I just had another way of accessing the internet I'd been gone from them sooo fast it would make their heads spin! Isn't there ANYBODY out there that can create an efficient new search engine??

[ZetaZeta_]

The search engine isn't what the deal is about. It's about advertising and advertisement results. Google is 60% of the search market only because people love using Google. You can use Yahoo and MSN search just the same, but no one seems to want to (combined share is, what, around 25%???), and then people like you complain.

Competition exists for Google, it's just the best product. <_<

This advertisement deal, however, might be dangerous, though. Even though at the moment advertisers are the ones who set prices (so I've read in countless articles) I wonder if Google can even change that easily?

Meh, In my opinion monopolies are *not inherently bad.* They have their downsides, but sometimes they can have upsides (if there's only one company for search advertisement, then you know you ad can potentially reach 100% of searchers, etc.) Of course, the downside would be Google dictating prices (which I would assume wouldn't happen, but you never know, hence all this scare) or retardation of development (although I consider Google to be on the forefront of innovation, but again you still can't know for sure, and I don't want to appeal to authority).

[ahcollin]

To Sweetpatootie:

Google doesn't have a monopoly. No one is forced to point their browser to google.com and do a search. Competition is one click away. Morons like you perpetuate this myth, however.

[BIGELLOW]

I think schools need to push for more education in the area of business and economics. People clearly have the wrong idea about what a monopoly is. A monopoly ISN'T when your product is so popular that a majority of people use your product and don't bother with the competition. That's just called having a successful product. If having the most successful product alone were a monopoly, there would be no incentive for businesses to try to create a successful product. Innovation and come to a halt and the economy would collapse.

A monopoly is when it is very difficult, nearly impossible, or very problematic for people to use your competition. If people feel "forced" to use one product and only one product, either because there is NO competition (whether good competition or poor competition) or that switching to the competition is cumbersome, problematic, etc...

Given this, Google is NOT a monopoly... not even CLOSE. They are simply very successful. As quickly as you came to this site to read this article, you can also just as quickly go to live.com to perform a search... or cuil.com... or ask.com... or yahoo.com... or altavista.com... etc... There is a LOT of competition out there in the search engine marketplace. Why don't people just flock to Google's competition? Simply because Google's better at it.

Also, the DOJ has no concerns whatsoever about Google's search engine and a possible monopoly. It isn't even a consideration. Instead, this is about advertising. But, again, there are still many choices. Yahoo isn't getting rid of their advertising platform. If you want to advertise on just Yahoo, go ahead. Yahoo will get 100% of the money. Google isn't stealing any of Yahoo's ad business. It also makes no sense whatsoever (this is basic statistics or, rather, simple math) to add Yahoo's advertising market share to Google's advertising market share and than say "Google's market share has now grown to XX%." That's ridiculous. You might as well add the numbers together and say that Yahoo's market share has now grown to that same amount. It's irrelevant. Yahoo will be in the power to determine whether or not to use an ad from Google's ad network. It will likely be a very small amount... perhaps less than 10% or 5% of Yahoo's overall traffic... maybe even 1%... again, the ball is in Yahoo's court. They are only going to do what makes them (Yahoo) the most money.

This would be a different story ENTIRELY if Yahoo decided to eliminate every single one of its own ads and closed its ad marketplace, then put up Google's ads all over its site. THAT would increase Google's advertising market share to XX%. THEN, there would be a case of monopoly concerns. It would mean that it would be very difficult for anyone to advertise on any of the high traffic sites without sending plenty of money in Google's direction.

In the meantime, Yahoo's properties (overall) gets more traffic than Google's properties. Why has nobody been saying all along that Yahoo has a monopoly on traffic? The reality of it is, size alone or popularity alone does not shout "monopoly"... there has to be some difficulty on the part of businesses or consumers TRYING to switch. Just saying "Using Google's services helps my business out so much that it is DIFFICULT to switch." That doesn't cut it. It isn't about the quality of the services making it hard to switch, or the low prices making it hard to switch, or the powerful brand name making it hard to switch, or the peer pressure making it hard to switch... these are things you need to deal with yourself. Monopoly comes into play if there is a real-world technical reason that makes it cumbersome for you to switch. Switching ads is as simple as typing the same ad text or sending the same ad images or videos to another provider, of which there are still plenty. Switching search engine choices is as simple as visiting one of the other choices and using it instead.

It has been a long time since a company has become so successful and popular as Google in such a short period of time that people are still stuck in the "Microsoft" mentality, thinking that Google is somehow tricking everyone like the tobacco industry did. This isn't hardware... it isn't even software... it's just a service. Your web browser has no problems with you changing to another service. It really doesn't. If you don't like using Google, go somewhere else and stop complaining. If you DO like using Google, chances are, there isn't a monopoly. In general, people tend to DISLIKE monopolies... and yet, when they try to leave to use a better service (or piece of hardware or piece of software) they find technical difficulties and simply cannot do so without major disruption.

[jharrisofkansas]

I have had great luck using Google to get my online business started as they have many webmaster tools and tips on how to do business online...all of it is free.There are other things aside from being the biggest company in your field that can raise the ire of the feds....Does the company in question have unethical or illegal business practices that can stifle fair competition...Then again our government (both major parties) failed miserably in ignoring the abuse in our financial institutions...Of course we know that a possible monopoly concerning search engines is much more of an issue.....yes that was sarcasm.