Microsoft was punished for pumping a market with a free product, with its development supported by revenues from a monopoly product, so that they could afford to give it away where competitors could not. If Google offers something for free, kills off its competitors who were charging for their version, and then starts charging when they're the only ones left, then the French court has a point.
Even the headline in the linked article is absurd: "French court protectionis
Still trolling, I see. A few quick notes: * Google doesn't have a monopoly anywhere, even in search. * Google Maps is not given away, it sports ads, and the API costs money to access * You fail to mention Mapquest, or MS maps. Why just sue Google for its maps? Because it is the best one out there? * Why should Bottin be kept alive? Why not Garmin?
In short, you're wrong on two fundamental counts: that this is anything but protectionism of the most basic nature, and that somehow Google Maps is both special, and n
Still trolling, I see. A few quick notes: * Google doesn't have a monopoly anywhere, even in search.
Google search most certainly is a monopoly. A legal monopoly does not require 100% market share. Companies have been deemed monopolies with under 50% share and Google is way higher then that - go google it if you don't believe me.
Now, having a monopoly is not illegal, but using your monopoly profits to corner other markets is illegal. This is exactly the same thing that MS was convicted of a decade ago. Google it. When MS was killing Netscape it took the authorities years to act and the trial also took fore
Monopoly is a control or advantage obtained by one entity over the commercial market in a specific area. Monopolization is an offense under federal anti trust law. The two elements of monopolization are (1) the power to fix prices and exclude competitors within the relevant market. (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen or historical accident.
I have no idea how Google Search has the ability to either fix prices or exclude competitors through anything but offering a better product. Feel free to provide your argument, but at this point I see no evidence that Google is in a position where it either has a monopoly (control of or advantage in the search market), or that it is using monopoly power to advance that position.
Why don't you read your definition again? According to that, Google most definitely does have a monopoly in search. They are dominant in that area. And what they're getting slapped for is not for having a monopoly on search, which is quite fine, but by abusing that monopoly to edge themselves into other markets and drive out competition.
Please show me how Google has the ability to fix prices in the Search market, AND how they grow their market share in that market through means other than normal business operation. Finally, show that Bottin is somehow active in the online map market. Actually, I'll save you the trouble: they are a terrible knock-off of the original Yahoo, but aimed at businesses. Google has little to do with their market.
Note that being dominant in an area has very little to do with being a monopoly, and even less to do w
Please show me how Google has the ability to fix prices in the Search market, AND how they grow their market share in that market through means other than normal business operation.... Note that being dominant in an area has very little to do with being a monopoly, and even less to do with monopolization of your market position.
Google is able to provide for their many web services for free from all the advertising revenue that they earn with Google Adwords, DoubleClick and AdMob. They've pretty much cornered the advertising market with their dominate share of the search engine market and web applications. They secured their top spot with their purchases of Sprinks (2003), Applied Semantics (2003), dMarc Broadcasting (2006), YouTube (2006), AdScape(2007), DoubleClick (2007), AdMob (2009), Teracent (2009), Invite Media (2010), and Admeld (2011). This doesn't include all the other purchases of search technology companies, review sites (including Zagats), web applications, voice of IP providers, social media analytic services, and shopping sites.
They are basically buying out potential competitors, potential technology that they can use for their advantage, or high traffic websites that would suddenly use one or more Google advertising subsidiaries.
This is similar to the tactics used by Microsoft in the late 80's early 90's to secure their dominate position.
This was predicted to happen two years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it?
Microsoft was punished for pumping a market with a free product, with its development supported by revenues from a monopoly product, so that they could afford to give it away where competitors could not. If Google offers something for free, kills off its competitors who were charging for their version, and then starts charging when they're the only ones left, then the French court has a point.
Even the headline in the linked article is absurd: "French court protectionis
Re: (Score:5, Informative)
Still trolling, I see. A few quick notes:
* Google doesn't have a monopoly anywhere, even in search.
* Google Maps is not given away, it sports ads, and the API costs money to access
* You fail to mention Mapquest, or MS maps. Why just sue Google for its maps? Because it is the best one out there?
* Why should Bottin be kept alive? Why not Garmin?
In short, you're wrong on two fundamental counts: that this is anything but protectionism of the most basic nature, and that somehow Google Maps is both special, and n
Re: (Score:5, Informative)
Still trolling, I see. A few quick notes:
* Google doesn't have a monopoly anywhere, even in search.
Google search most certainly is a monopoly. A legal monopoly does not require 100% market share. Companies have been deemed monopolies with under 50% share and Google is way higher then that - go google it if you don't believe me.
Now, having a monopoly is not illegal, but using your monopoly profits to corner other markets is illegal. This is exactly the same thing that MS was convicted of a decade ago. Google it. When MS was killing Netscape it took the authorities years to act and the trial also took fore
Re: (Score:3)
By what definition? From http://definitions.uslegal.com/m/monopoly/ [uslegal.com]:
Monopoly is a control or advantage obtained by one entity over the commercial market in a specific area. Monopolization is an offense under federal anti trust law. The two elements of monopolization are (1) the power to fix prices and exclude competitors within the relevant market. (2) the willful acquisition or maintenance of that power as distinguished from growth or development as a consequence of a superior product, business acumen or historical accident.
I have no idea how Google Search has the ability to either fix prices or exclude competitors through anything but offering a better product. Feel free to provide your argument, but at this point I see no evidence that Google is in a position where it either has a monopoly (control of or advantage in the search market), or that it is using monopoly power to advance that position.
Re: (Score:4, Interesting)
Why don't you read your definition again? According to that, Google most definitely does have a monopoly in search. They are dominant in that area. And what they're getting slapped for is not for having a monopoly on search, which is quite fine, but by abusing that monopoly to edge themselves into other markets and drive out competition.
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
Please show me how Google has the ability to fix prices in the Search market, AND how they grow their market share in that market through means other than normal business operation. Finally, show that Bottin is somehow active in the online map market. Actually, I'll save you the trouble: they are a terrible knock-off of the original Yahoo, but aimed at businesses. Google has little to do with their market.
Note that being dominant in an area has very little to do with being a monopoly, and even less to do w
Re:This was predicted to happen two years ago (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is able to provide for their many web services for free from all the advertising revenue that they earn with Google Adwords, DoubleClick and AdMob. They've pretty much cornered the advertising market with their dominate share of the search engine market and web applications. They secured their top spot with their purchases of Sprinks (2003), Applied Semantics (2003), dMarc Broadcasting (2006), YouTube (2006), AdScape(2007), DoubleClick (2007), AdMob (2009), Teracent (2009), Invite Media (2010), and Admeld (2011). This doesn't include all the other purchases of search technology companies, review sites (including Zagats), web applications, voice of IP providers, social media analytic services, and shopping sites.
They are basically buying out potential competitors, potential technology that they can use for their advantage, or high traffic websites that would suddenly use one or more Google advertising subsidiaries.
This is similar to the tactics used by Microsoft in the late 80's early 90's to secure their dominate position.
Re: (Score:2)
They've pretty much cornered the advertising market with their dominate share of the search engine market and web applications.
Actually, that's pretty far from the truth. If you want the leader of online advertising, you want Facebook. There's some discrepancy in how the numbers pan out, but they all agree: Facebook beats Google fairly handily in the online advertising market.
http://www.allfacebook.com/report-facebook-leads-2011-online-display-ad-sales-2011-06 [allfacebook.com]
http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/04/facebook-one-third-online-ads/ [techcrunch.com]
You actually missed the more troublesome buy in your list: that of flight data company ITA. Because of the way t