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What's Needed in a DOJ/Google-Yahoo Consent Decree?

Given the Wall Street Journal's reporting that "Google, Yahoo seek to avoid suit over ad deal" -- what provisions are needed in a court-enforced consent decree between the DOJ and Google-Yahoo in order to protect competition?

Consent Decree Principles to Protect Competition:

  • Prohibit any agreements between Google and Yahoo, which generate substantial negative efficiencies or negative network effects.
    • (At core, the proposed ad agreement embodies a negative efficiency-transfer dynamic
      • In other words, the agreement decreases Yahoo-Panama's efficiency in quality-improvement and relevance-learning, while simultaneously increasing Google's efficiency in quality-improvement and relevance-learning, by transfusing the efficiency-lifeblood of search engine advertising quality and relevance-learning -- search queries -- from Yahoo to Google.) 
  • Impose bright-line prohibitions that do not require extensive or intensive DOJ, Court, or regulatory resources to monitor or oversee compliance with the consent decree. 
    • Given the extraordinary dynamism and complexity of search engine advertising and the millions of lines in computer code involved, arbitrary compromises/limitations in grey areas invite pushing-the-envelope by the companies and frustratiion of oversight by DOJ and the Court. 
  • Apply any Google-Yahoo ad partnership restrictions to all analogous ad partnerships between Google and other search competitors.
    • Given Google's core dominant search share of ~60-70%, Google's ad partnerships with #4 AOL  and #6 Ask.com, have analogous negative efficiency-transfer dynamics to Google-Yahoo.   
  • Base the duration of the consent decree on a third-party measurement of competitive facts -- not an arbitrary time period.  
  • Require full and contemporaneous auction transparency so customers can win the auction if they bid the highest price -- the definition of an auction; and so customers can contemporareously understand how any algorithmic variable could affect the outcome of their bids.
  • Require 'honest broker' practices:
    • disclosing to bidders contemporaneously if Google is bidding or has an interest in a particular auction, and
    • prohibiting any undisclosed self-dealing or front-running in key word auctions.
  • Require fair representation and meaningful disclosure of financial conflicts of interest.
  • Require interoperability with third party measurement and management tools and ad networks/exchanges in order to prevent  any foreclosure of competition through denial of access to complements necessary to compete with the Google and Yahoo platforms.
  • Prohibit the leveraging of market power in search to advantage Google-owned properties or content, like YouTube, DoubleClick, Checkout, Google Maps, Google Earth, Blogger, FeedBurner, etc.  
  • Prohibit use of surplus market power to secure distribution agreements which impede efficient competitive choice.   
  • Prohibit retaliation against advertisers, publishers, competitors, and consumers.
  • Bottom line: Any consent decree addressing Google-Yahoo agreement will have to include more than the companies' 'concession' to remain competitors after the deal -- which is already implicit in antitrust law.