RSSIs Google the next Microsoft in the eyes of the DOJ?
By Ed Oswald | Published September 10, 2008, 1:50 PM
The departure of one of America's leading antitrust attorneys from his law firm, and his subsequent hiring by the US Dept. of Justice, suggests very strongly that the DOJ may be preparing for its most serious antitrust offensive in years.
Sanford Litvack, who was antitrust chief during the Carter administration and former Vice Chairman of the Walt Disney Company, has reportedly been hired by the US Justice Dept., apparently to look over Google's ad deal with Yahoo. This follows weeks of depositions and subpoenas in the DOJ's investigation of the deal, which began last April and which recently became a formal inquiry.
As The Wall Street Journal first reported yesterday, without citing sources, Litvack's job will be to look over the evidence gathered so far and make a decision on how to proceed. BetaNews independently confirmed that Litvack is no longer an attorney with Hogan & Hartson.
Further reporting by The New York Times confirmed that Litvack was hired by the Justice Dept., though its source with the law firm did not state what his assignment would be. It then confirmed, through two of its own anonymous sources, that Litvack would be appointed to the Google/Yahoo case.
Google's increasing dominance in certain key sectors of online advertising has led competitors to associate it with "monopoly," which is legal under US law, though it requires strict regulation. Possible DOJ action may remind some of the government's long, drawn-out case against Microsoft, almost ten years ago to the day.
Competitors are worried that the Google/Yahoo deal has implicit exclusivity, which could be used to obstruct free competition. Some have already asked the DOJ and other government authorities to stop the deal.
One of two possible outcomes of the DOJ's inquiry is that it could compel the two companies to make changes in order to gain approval. Or, it could sue to block the deal altogether -- and it is this latter possibility that might necessitate the hiring of someone like Sanford Litvack.
The Justice Department is not commenting to the press on the move, and requests for comment by BetaNews went unanswered as of press time. Yahoo said that it knew of the hiring, but remained confident that the deal was lawful.
Google has also repeatedly argued that the deal does not run afoul of any antitrust law. It points out that the deal is non-exclusive, and Yahoo retains the rights as to when and where its ads are displayed.
The deal means about $800 million annually in extra revenue for Yahoo, according to estimates.
unlike microsoft, if google subsides into oblivian, computers will still be fully functional and the internet will continue to thrive.
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|Since when does MSFT provide the only route to PC functionality, and what have they done on the internet lately?
The world would be just fine without MSFT, Google, Apple, etc...
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|Google ,once the white knight now approaching the gangster monopolist. I knew this would come greed nothing more or less.
Google needs to tend to there own backyard before gatecrashing someone elses, they dont remove spam results from there listings, they constantly juggle the search results causing frustration..
split the Google monster before it inherits space in your underpants displaying ads when you take a leak
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|There isn't any space in my underpants.
/stock response #65
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|*LAUGHING*
What other response could possibly have been given? ;p
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|I would think apple would be first in line before google, but then what do I know, I mean purposely locking hardware vendors out of your product and pigeon holing people into using your services/software might be perfectly legal now days.
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|I really wonder what Google's future would look like: they don't have Silverlight, they don't have a browser that succesful as IE, they don't have an operating system. Online marketing is no good cash cow, so we see the market consolidation.
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|Whatever the reality is beind the speculation regarding the speculation based on speculation about the previous speculation which may or may not have been based upon speculation....
Well, hey, at least BetaNews has joined the ranks of the other 'news' programs in adopting high standards! Now, if they could just keep us apprised of what is happening with all of the celebrities!
So what has happened? Has someone mistakenly woken up someone at the DOJ/FTC and mentioned that mergers and consolidation has 'started' to occur in the marketplace? I sure hope they don't get wind of the telco market!
At this point, who cares - even if real, far too little far too late. But give them a week or two an we can watch as SBC is broken up like AT&T was 20+ years ago. And we can wax nostalgic on how that was going to user in a new age of competition. LOL!
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|Aren't Yahoo pretty much just using AdSense to a degree?
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|*laughing*
has reportedly been hired by the US Justice Dept., apparently to look over Google's ad deal with Yahoo.
reportedly...by Betanews...referencing a betanews article. Not really sourced there, is it?
As The Wall Street Journal first reported yesterday, without citing sources
Well...at least we're being consistent.
Why don't we just get it over with and rename the site, "BetaRumorMill*"
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|Haha. BetaNews are citing sources, but they're citing sources that are uncited.
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|I have to agree but I think the problem with
Ed and Scott is that they want people posting here so they run aricles that wouldn;t pass journalism 101.
If you look over the last few weeks or months, there has been a drop-off in responses to the articles written (settign aside the Palin piece). Betanews is Desperately trying to get clicks and just like the news media , they are willing to use uncited sources and rumors to do it. I know that PC has been around for a lot longer than me but this is a problem that I have seen since I started actuallly reading the articles as opposed to just looking at the betas.
So I am going back to just using the beta area and leave Ed and Scott to their shoddy journalism and hope everyone else does the same.
Of course, given the flame wars that won't happen but one can always hope.
Have a nice day:)
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|BN has always paid a subpar amount of attention to citing sources. Some writers are good on it, some aren't.
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|No, it's not the next Microsoft. The way they've done business is totally different.. so far. And if anything, just the fact that there is a Microsoft I think makes the difference. Theirs competition, etc, etc..
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|Sweet, so they'll just remerge in a few years then and nothing changes... got it.
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|how can they go after google, they have no product, just services, like umm att aint the same way, i think the DOJ need to invesigate politions only
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|A service is a kind of product.
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|The services they offer are products of Google by definition.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/product
Also, learn to spell.
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|Or maybe a product is a type of service!
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