NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] "J" is for Jealousy: FTC Investigating Google
"J" is for Jealousy: FTC Investigating Google
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000872.html
In a move anticipated for quite sometime, the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) has opened an "antitrust" investigation of Google, as
noted on the Official Google Blog this morning ( http://j.mp/mqMBNn ).
Media coverage of this event has been fascinating, especially since
text along the lines of "what Google's opponents and competitors have
been hoping for" seems to be featured prominently in many reports.
Which yields a question. What is driving antitrust concerns in this
case?
Comparisons with major technology antitrust actions of the past don't
seem to provide many useful answers.
When AT&T was broken up decades ago (today now rapidly recreating its
old power, but that's another story) Ma Bell was clearly a monopolist,
and engaged in various unsavory behaviors in an attempt to preserve
its position. AT&T owned the phones, the lines, the conduits, the
tunnels, the buildings, the whole shebang. Alternatives for most
people were simply nonexistent, and when alternatives did exist, they
were extraordinarily expensive to access.
Antitrust actions against Microsoft many years later -- the firm most
mentioned now in comparison to Google when discussing such
investigations -- were focused on clearly anticompetitive behaviors by
Microsoft, who used Windows' integration with PC hardware by
manufacturers, and a tight coupling with its Internet Explorer
browser, to almost totally dominate the PC marketplace in a manner
that was both technically difficult and economically impractical for
most users to escape.
These examples demonstrate a key aspect of traditional antitrust
targets -- you need to be both big *and* bad. Organic growth
alone, in the absence of anticompetitive behaviors, should not be
enough to trigger serious antitrust penalties.
Of course, if you're a competitor who has failed to innovate fast
enough to keep up with the market leader in the eyes of consumers, you
may grasp at any excuse to try drag down your perceived corporate foe.
It's impossible to ignore the fact that such jealousies by Google
competitors and other adversaries appear to have played major roles,
directly or indirectly, in the FTC's newly announced action.
For years now, we've seen both direct and "astroturfed" attacks on
Google that have been noticeable for their exaggerations and outright
misrepresentations more than anything else. Some have just been lies,
plain and simple.
A fundamental problem with attacking Google in this way (outside of
poor ethics on the part of many attackers) is the ease with which
Internet users can switch to Google competitors at any time.
In the heyday of Ma Bell, even if competitors had existed, the expense
of changing hardware, new cabling and lines, and so forth, would have
been extreme.
The vast majority of Microsoft's Windows users were not in a position
to rip the Microsoft OS or Internet Explorer browser out of their PCs
and install an entirely new OS, even if they had realized that
alternatives existed. And since they had usually already paid for
Windows -- either directly or as an amount "hidden" in the overall
cost of their computers, they'd be flushing money down the john as
well.
In contrast, most Google users pay nothing to use Google services. If
they don't want to use Google Search, access to Microsoft's Bing is
just a URL and click away. Don't like Gmail? You can easily switch
to Yahoo. Looking for an alternative to Google Street View? You can
be viewing Bing Maps in virtually less time than it takes to read this
sentence. And Google has "data liberation" teams that work
specifically to make it easy to export your data from Google if you
want to take it elsewhere.
The anticompetitive, "lock in" characteristics that we normally
associated with antitrust investigations and actions simply aren't
present with Google.
So we end up back with "J" is for Jealousy -- with competitors who
have been pushing the government to help them make up for their own
inabilities to build systems and satisfy Internet users to the degree
that Google has accomplished.
There are many people and organizations in this country that need and
deserve the government's help right now -- for food, housing, health
care, you name it.
But in an age when so many genuinely need help, it's difficult to
reconcile attempts by Google's competitors to obtain what amounts to
"corporate welfare" from the federal government in the guise of an
antitrust investigation -- it just doesn't seem right.
Hopefully, the FTC will ultimately realize this as well.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://j.mp/laurenbuzz
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com