Google May Be on The Dock Soon
First let me preface this with a disclaimer. I am a great Google fan, I follow closely what the company does, understand (and often applaud) its business model and though the constant changing of its search algorithm makes my life difficult, I also understand why it is necessary.
Being a fan, however, does not translate into blind bias so the news that Google may be subpoenaed soon is not the kind of information I would dismiss out of hand without examining it in depth. One of the earliest articles I wrote on Technorati was the collapse of Google’s Book Agreement with publishers and the results of that.
Without a doubt Google is large and even if it did not plan to somehow coral all available information, its very size and reach make it a big juicy target for anyone wanting to take a shot at it. Its extensive spending spree which I have chronicled on these pages also raises some questions, particularly as, much of what Google buys is in the same sphere of activity as itself and a side-effect of these purchases can be a monopoly by default.
The questions raised by the impending action are, in turn: A. Is there any truth to the allegations of Google’s anti-trust activities? B. Will this affect Google’s plans for the future? C. Will any of this be good for the consumer?
As far as anti-trust activities go Google is a global company which tries hard to act like a local one. It streamlines, questions and examine sits activities. It tries to do everything as fast as possible and it tries hard to be sensitive to end-user concerns and responsive to market needs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Google is also a global company and much of what global companies with deep purses do is the direct result of micro-action which make perfect sense at the time they are taken. A decision, for instance, to buy up video technology in order to cut short the time it takes to create a successful vertical presence in the video world can easily lead to a gobbling up of available companies and the creation of a monopoly by default, if no one checks. The same applies for other services.
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