Investing

The New York Times (and others) reported yesterday Google's announcement that it was launching a "Gadget ads" program  which is essentially display-ad-serving to "widgets' which are essentially "mini-websites" within websites.

It is getting harder and harder for Google antitrust lawyers to argue with a straight face that Google does not compete in the market of "display-ad-serving" with DoubleClick.

• Google is the world leader in "serving":
  • search text ads
  • contextual ads;
  • video display ads through YouTube,
• And is now entering: 
  • mobile ad- serving;
  • and widget ad-serving to these mini-websites withing websites.
• Google's definition of "ad-serving" is increasingly becoming too-cute-by-half semantic wordplay and not a functional or factual definition.

Antitrust officials should ask Google if they are colluding with DoubleClick to not compete while the merger is pending.

It seems the "pixie dust" of "free" municipal wifi isn't so "magical" after all.

• USA Today reports in its page one story today: "Cities turning off plans for WiFi, Complexity, cost doom efforts to create access."

To quote one of my conservative heroes, the late great Milton Friedman, "there is no free lunch."

• The article chronicles the growing trend that cities around the country are finally learning that simple economic lesson -- which should have been obvious to them from the start.
• But how could the cities forget the economic truism that "there is no free lunch" and let their expectations so far exceed reality?
  • The answer lies in how many companies, who routinely expect a "free lunch" from communications carriers (like net neutrality supporters: Google, eBay-Skype, Amazon, Intel et.al), whispered in these cities ears that they could easily have free or very low cost wireless broadband access.
    • The problem that these net neutrality/open access proponents brushed under the rug was that building and operating a wireless broadband network, even a lower cost WiFi or WiMax network, still costs a substantial amount of money, and requires substantial resources and expertise to pull off at a minimum quality level.

Bottomline:  What I hope cities take away from this painful lesson is what they were taught when they were young: "if it looks too good to be true, it is."

The New York Times has twin articles today that provide fresh additional evidence of why the Google-DoubleClick merger is anticompetitive: "Google to sell Webpage ads on Mobile phones" and "Times stops charging for parts of its website." 

The first article is yet more compelling evidence that Google's main merger defense -- that Google and DoubleClick don't compete in serving ads -- is simply bogus.

Google's credibility as a real and reliable wireless carrier has taken a big hit in that Tech Daily is reporting that a Google/Earthlink's "sweeping plan to blanket San Francisco with a high speed Internet network is officially dead."

With much fanfare Google has said it would bring free WiFi to San Francisco at an estimated cost of $15 million with partner Earthlink, which now is experiencing financial problems and layoffs.

Some folks have no shame.

The US Department of Justice in comments to the FCC said that it is opposed to "net neutrality" per an AP story.

Now both the US Department of Justice and The US Federal Trade Commission, the agencies legally responsible for investigating anti-competitive practices, officially have stated opposition to net neutrality regulation/legislation. 

It is never a good omen for a merger's approval outlook, when EU antitrust authorities can't wait to investigate the impact of the merger and proactively inititiate their own antitrust investigation -- before their official process even gets started.

Google's antitrust lawyers have to be bummed by the development reported by Reuters that: "EU questions customers over Google-DoubleClick deal."

I always enjoy reading the Britain-based Economist's take on things American because they bring a detached, across-the-pond, critical perspective that often is very illuminating.

• That is clearly the case in The Economist's great expose: "Inside the Googleplex" and their editorial: "Who's afraid of Google?"

Relevant to Google-DoubleClick merger:  

The Washington Post's editors should have been more forthright and put a "news analysis" label on their front page story today "Japan's warp-speed ride to Internet future." If the Post had put the "news analysis label on the story, I would not be writing this critical analysis on why the story was not news but a thinly-disguised advocacy piece for net neutrality masquerading as news or straightforward unbiased reporting.

Kudos to Steve Pociask of the American Consumer Institute for another outstanding piece of analysis that debunks the notion that the US wireless market is not competitive and requires net neutrality/open access regulation.

• I urge you to read ACI's "Comparison of structure, conduct and performance: US vs. Europe's wireless markets."

The powerfully straightforward conclusions are:

• The US has more choice and less concentration in wireless than Europe;
• Americans use their wireless almost four times as much as Europe;
• US wireless prices are the lowest in the world save for Hong Kong.

What's wrong with that picture?