Why the Google-Yahoo ad deal is nothing to fear

Google does not set the prices of the search advertising market; its advertisers do. With auction pricing, even a major player can't control the market.

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[PhaseDMA]

How much leverage does a complaint from a company about another company they just tried a hostile takeover have?

One would hope none at all.

[Super2online]

Randall you have it all wrong. It's not that Google is setting bid prices, they don't. The problem is the sheer number of users that are using Google. The more users using the service, the more advertisers flock to advertise there. The more advertisers, the higher the bids go. It cracks me up that you don't "get it"! Evidently you haven't used the Adwords service much.

The more money Google makes, the more they can invest in making there service better than everyone else. Once you get as large a lead as they have in quality, games over! Everyone comes to your service. Haven't you read the posts on this subject on every site that offers up and article about it. Nobody wants to use any other service. All the other services are mocked!

So there in lies the problem. Google alreaday commands 80% market share. Yahoo begins using the service, adding even more Google users (even though they are on Yahoo doing it), more money is flowing to Google than would otherwise be coming. This means advertising costs continue to escalate out of control.

We all make Google and it's investors outrageously rich and nobody can compete unless the government steps in to prevent this from happening. I for one applaud this effort and pray to God that the government has the wisdom to block this.

Mark my words Google is headed towards complete control of the seach engine industry. Is that what you want? One company controlling all search results?, One company controlling all search engine advertising dollars? One company using government regulation to remove features from operating systems because they want to control which search engine you use? I DON'T THINK SO!

[drhamad]

Google does not set advertisers prices - but they do set the rake. Google's monopoly doesn't hurt advertisers, but it very well could hurt AdSense partners. As it is, to the best of my knowledge, Google doesn't even tell them what the rake (their take) is - and there's no way to really track it. Google could increase it or decrease it at a whim. That is why they are something to fear.