World Assoc. Newspapers Opposes Google-Yahoo deal

The World Association of Newspapers stated it "strenuously opposes Google’s attempt to take over a portion of Yahoo’s content advertising and syndicated search businesses. Google already substantially dominates both businesses and its market dominance is growing by the day. Yahoo is (and should continue to be) Google’s most significant competitor in the syndicated search business and is (and should continue to be) its only real competitor in content advertising."

The WAN also said:

• "Perhaps never in the history of newspaper publishing has a single, commercial entity threatened to exert this much control over the destiny of the press."
• "Freedom of the press is too important to rest in the hands of a single company." (FreePress? Where are you?)

Google, you have another BIG problem.

• In addition to having the association of the top advertisers representing 9,000 brands oppose your deal, Google now has the association representing 18,000 newspapers world wide 'strenuously' opposing the Google-Yahoo deal.

Now large powerful voices from Google's two biggest customer segments have seen through Google's pathetically self-serving argument that it needs to cartelize the search advertising industry to best serve its customers.

Better late than never. Content providers were largely asleep at the switch in the FTC's review of the Google-DoubleClick merger.

• As I explained in my Googleopoly white paper and my Senate Judiciary testimony, that deal would set Google up to become the de facto paymaster for the world's content on the Internet. As I explained in detail then, that deal was the one that tipped the market to Googleopoly.

The WAN communique also shows that the newspaper industry is begining to figure out how extensively Google has, and will continue to disintermediate the newspaper industry.    

Bottom line: The WAN now appears to truly get the risk here

•  "...most publishers are acutely aware that Google’s ever-tightening grip on internet traffic, its unbridled use of online content, and its dominance in online advertising poses a very real threat to the continued viability of the independent content generation industry."