Copyright

Google turned in another awe-inspring financial performance in 1Q07. Pick your news report for the basics. All you need to know is revenue growth was up 63%. Wow!

• Derek Brown of Cantor Fitzgerald said in the Washington Post today:
• "I am basically convinced that no company in history has put up the type of finanical performance that Google has put up from a growth and financial perspective for as long as they have done it."
• It's hard to disagree with him. There is no other example.
• They are a jugernaut.
• What I questioned in my recent 10-page analysis of the Google-Doubleclick merger, was whether all of that success is legitimate given rampant click fraud and Google's systematic theft of its core inputs -- copyrighted content.

Let me translate some of the earnings call:

Given my recent 10-page white paper which analyzes the antitrust and competitive implications of the Google-DoubleClick merger, I thought it would be helpful public service to pose some questions that reporters/analysts consider asking Google's CEO Mr. Schmidt on Google's earnings call.

1. Does Google have a 50% "antitrust dominant" share of the search market?
2. Is search the new Internet browser?
3. Is search the largest Internet access gatekeeper?
4. Is Google the new Microsoft of the Internet?
5. Would the DoubleClick acquisition foreclose competition in the Internet advertising market?

The news of Google acquiring Double-Click prompted me to spend a good part of my weekend analyzing the competitive implications of this seminal proposed acquisition for the future of the Internet.

My analysis focused on answering the following key questions of interest:

• What is Google's real competitive endgame with DoubleClick?
• Why is this acqusition likely to pass antitrust muster?
• Why will Google increasingly dominate Internet search?
• What other anticompetitive behaviors by Google position Google to dominate Internet advertising?

Summary of my conclusions:

The body of evidence from mainstream sources that Google systematically steals other's property continues to pile up.

• Today's Wall Street Journal article: "Google apologizes to Sohu for Web Tool's Similarities"
• "Sohu.com Inc. complained Sunday that the new software appeared to copy material from Sohu's Sogou search engine." "In a statement, Google acknowledged that web surfers have pointed out that some material came from "non-Google data sources." ... Google said: "We are willing to face up to our mistake and willing and offer an apology to users and the Sohu company"
• While that may sound nice, the article also clearly referred to Google's lack of transparency on these types of issues:
• Google "gave no indication of what it did, how much was from other sources or how it was included in the new tool."... A Google "spokeswoman said she had no additional information."
• It is standard operating procedure for Google not to be transparent. Their secrecy is legion and does not inspire trust.

So Google supporters are probably asking "so what?"

•  Why this matters is it adds to the mountain of evidence that Google operates "over the line" of legal behavior and/or acceptable business practices.

 Bottom line: Google likes to brag about its culture of pursuing "innovation without permission."

• Its just a fancy phrase for a business approach which tolerates and glamourizes trespass and theft to turn a buck.

It seems that more folks have Google's "number."

• National Journal's Tech Daily reports that the State of Utah has passed legislation to protect trademark owners in Utah from a new kind of identity theft, i.e. search engines (Google) abusing trademark ownership by selling trademarked keyword advertising to competitors.
• Good for Utah!
• Glad somebody is standing up to companies that systematically profit from theft of others' property under the lame guise of "Internet freedom."

It seems Google is learning the lesson the hard way -- that those in glass houses should not throw stones.

The WSJ is reporting that Viacom has sued Google for $1b in damages for stealing its copyrighted content.

• "YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google," Viacom said in a press release. "Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws."

Kudos to Microsoft for finally making a high profile challenge to Google's "cavalier" approach to copyright as reported in the lead story of the FT and in the WSJ today. It's about time that Microsoft figured out that a key element of Google's phenomenal success is simply that Google does not play by the same rules as other law-abiding companies.

• Google cheats. And Google justifies cheating by claiming their cheating benefits the masses.  
• Most recognize this twisted morality as "the ends justify the means."
• Google's motto is the double negative "don't be evil."
• Google has adopted an almost messianic mission to liberate all the world's information from the bondages of private ownership for the benefit of the masses.
• Specifically, "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."
• Google self-deputized itself for this world mission.

Under what authority does Google operate in carrying out its corporate mission?

• Does Google respect U.S. property law? International law? Common law?
• Or does Google-ism redefine these pedestrian legal restrictions of small-minded people and declare to the world that information is free and should be universally accessible to all people?  

Google cheats. and cheating is core to Google's long term business model. Let's review the evidence of Google's cheating: