September, 2007

By far the most interesting Internet development I have seen in weeks was a New York Times piece by Noam Cohen called: "Whiting out the ads, but at what cost?"

A major reason why the stakes are so high in the FTC's review of the Google-DoubleClick merger is how remarkably fast online advertising is overtaking other advertising industry segments that have been around for decades.

An important development occurred just before the long Labor day weekend that I didn't want people to miss. Media Daily News reported that: "Internet displaces radio as fourth largest ad medium."

The Financial Times had a noteworthy article about Google's role as an editor of content and defender of free speech -- when Google finds it convenient: "Thailand lifts Youtube ban after Google agrees to block some clips."

This article is an interesting juxtaposition to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's very recent comments on the importance of free speech at a speech before the Progress and Freedom Foundation. 

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."

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. 

CNET's respected Declan McCullagh produced a sound and fair analysis of what ails net neutrality, which I recommend as a good read on the state of play on the issue. Below is the comment I posted on his piece.

Some folks have no shame.

The San Francisco Chronicle has a precious article about Google's insatiable appetite for special treatment/corporate welfare: "Google execs take off with landing privileges at Moffet Field."  

If you missed The Washington Post's Steve Pearlstein's incisive and on point critique of how the campaign for net neutrality has morphed, it surely deserves a read -- its short.

See the header "Whiny Techies II" ("Whiny Techies I" is funny too.)  

Evidence continues to mount that the Google-DoubleClick merger presents serious anti-competitive concerns.

Let me share a series of antitrust developments over the last several days that cumulatively are very significant.

First, and most ominous, is that Yahoo, the weak #2 in the search market, which used to use Google's search engine, has been actively considering exiting the search business and outsourcing to #1 dominant Google or distant #3 Microsoft, because investors want the greatly expanded investment returns such a revenue-enhancing and cost cutting move would generate for shareholders.