Has Google's dominance of search reached the tipping point asks American Consumer Institute

The American Consumer Intstitute just put out a good consumergram on: the DOJ investigation of the Google-Yahoo deal and asks if the search market has reached a tipping point.

• The ACI consumergram is asking the right questions.
• More entities should be, and will be, asking these types of questions going forward because the facts and Google's behavior will demand it.

As I explained in detail in my Googleopoly analysis, the search market has already tipped to Google and the Google-DoubleClick merger was a tipping point to enable Google to extend its market power in search advertising to display and online advertising as well.

As I explained the stakes of lax antitrust enforcement in my Senate Judiciary testimony:

"The Stakes of Lax Antitrust Enforcement: Will Google be enabled to become the:

• “Online-advertising bottleneck provider” picking Internet content winners and losers?

• “Ultimate Internet Gatekeeper” deciding which Internet content gets viewed?

• “Internet’s de facto paymaster/boss” determining which websites get paid how much?

• “Internet market maker” that has uniquely comprehensive market intelligence and information on advertisers, websites, ad-inventory, viewers, and Internet user behavior?

No Checks and Balances? This merger should also give pause because every politician understands that “information is power”, and Google openly aspires to be the world’s most powerful information broker. No other entity currently has such a naked ambition to control or effectively corner the market for any of the world’s commodities, let alone all “the world’s information” (public and private), while also having the wherewithal (infrastructure, technology, capacity, expertise, and acquisitions) to accomplish the task. The combined Google-DoubleClick would have little accountability to consumers, competition, regulators, or third-party oversight."

What is amazing to me is that so many activists and so-called consumer groups have turned a blind eye to, and de facto blessed,  the real emerging antitrust problem in the marketplace -- Google -- because Google has effectively bought them off with support for net neutrality.

• These folks will rue the day they sold out their real consumer base for a misguided political agenda.
• The irony here is that the "enemy" of consumer groups supposed "enemy," the broadband companies, is not their "friend" at all, but probably consumers biggest ultimate "enemy" long term.