Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2011, as the US Federal Trade Commission opened its Google investigation, which closed in 2013 without antitrust charges over search results. In 2020 the US Justice Department sued Google, and in August 2024 a federal judge ruled it had illegally maintained a search monopoly.
US federal regulators are getting ready to go after Google in one of the biggest investigations ever into abuse of a dominant position on the internet and possible monopoly. Some claim that Google decides which companies succeed online and which are doomed to fail, because, as we all know, search engine positioning is a key factor in how visible our business is.
Does Google decide which companies appear higher or lower in the search results? Does Google, through its new product comparison service, decide which product the user should pick? Google has said that its service is designed for the user, not for company websites, and that sites rank higher or lower depending on the users themselves and how they behave when they browse those sites.
On the other hand, the Google algorithm detects which pages use fraudulent methods to earn a ranking they don’t deserve.
The user wants answers, and we give them answers. The user wants to compare products, and we give them a simple way to do it. The user decides which product to choose. The user decides which service to pick, and we should give them the freedom to choose.
US antitrust law doesn’t consider a monopoly illegal as long as users have the option of choosing other services and those services are within their reach. We all know that Yahoo and Bing exist, and yet 80% of us have chosen Google. Nobody held a gun to our heads to make us pick that search engine.
Google is becoming the target of other internet companies because, let’s be honest, it has a service that works and a profitable business model that few can match. Are we talking about investigating whether there’s a monopoly, or are we looking at incompetence fighting against a competent company?
On occasion I’ve studied the different search engines, and I’ve clearly seen the results that both Yahoo and Bing return. Some have nothing to do with what you searched for: in the top positions we find websites that haven’t been updated in five years, and a large share of their results come from pages that use techniques such as hidden text or keyword stuffing.
In my case, I’m free to choose, and after trying several search engines, I choose Google without a doubt. Not because it’s the only option, but because of how professional its service is. So before investigating whether it is abusing a dominant market position, we should look at whether there’s another company that can compete with Google and rival it in quality and features.
Some people insist on offering motorcycles when what we need is an airplane.
I think this is a clear case of a childish tantrum: “Since it’s better than me and I can’t beat it fairly, I’ll try to play dirty.” Let’s remember that one of the companies that started this legal battle is Microsoft, when, ironically, Bill Gates himself was once accused of monopolistic practices.
A few months ago I set out to write an article listing all the Google services and features we can take advantage of. In the end I gave up, because I would have needed a team of writers: Google offers a huge number of services (hundreds), and best of all, you can use all of them for free with a single account.
Make no mistake, Google wants to move into new markets, including hardware, and that is already frightening the big companies that have dominated that sector until now. So a new war has begun: “Take down Google.”
See also: The most widely used internet business models, plus some tips
Today isn’t the day for conspiracy theories, but… what if the problem isn’t the dominant position but control of information? Or what if it’s about something purely economic? Will Google be the one to solve the US crisis? How can it be the most profitable company around, and how can it be made to share its revenue? Oh well, being number one has its downsides too.
Featured image: Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
