The Google Monopoly - Where Will it Go

Google controls 75% of the Search/Advertising space. They are garnishing over 90% of all new growth. Time to break the monopoly? What will the potential Microsoft & Yahoo pact mean?

The potential deal between Microsoft and Yahoo has always been a good idea. People got greedy and delayed it for a year and cost Yahoo shareholders an arm and two legs.

 

But, what difference will a deal between Microsoft and Yahoo make now? Google controls the search space and by inference the advertising space. Google is approaching control of 75% of the search market and is garnishing over 90% of the new market growth.

 

There are a couple of issues that are eventually going to be headed to the courts:

 

-  Who should own the 'search index' for the Internet? If I want to list my business in a phone book, I can do so and I get equal billing with all the other companies that pay the same rate as me. Yet, Google's processes make it almost impossible for a new company to appear in search results, no matter how applicable, unless they pay Google for searchs and ads. Google's systems consistently try to force an advertiser to increase their bids. I have had keywords become 'inactive' because my bid was too low to appear on the first page of search results. Yet, when you look, there are only one or two ads on the search results page.There will come a time when the Google monopoly control of the Internet 'index' is broken up - like ATT was for the US phone network.

 

-  Ads often use copyrighted and trademarked names. Google, like the advertisers, make money off of those names because they lend credibility to the ad and entice consumers to click on the ad.  Class action lawsuits are already being filed to pursue damages against Google and others.

 

Let's face it, the Internet 'search index' is quickly becoming a natural monopoly that should be controlled by a single source and utilized, at a fee, by all search companies, including Google. IP addresses are centrally controlled by the not-for-profit ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). Then anyone could freely make their companies available to open search engines. I would love to see who REALLY has the best result for my search query, unfiltered by ad generation algorithms.

 

Following an ICANN model for the search index also falls directly inline with current moves to expand broadband penetration to rural areas and businesses. Spending $7.2 billion dollars on network infrastructure so that rural companies can sell products and provide jobs is great. But, if the companies can't be visible to their markets due to search result filtering practices the equation starts to fall apart.

 

Microsoft and Yahoo are potentially good partners. They complement each other well. Microsoft's new Bing search engine is an excellent evolution of searching, something that Google has no desire or impetus to do. How can Google improve the search experience when it is driven by revenue expectations in their ad business? In spite, of all the Google innovations, Google still makes 97% of their revenues from advertising (page 38).