May 2010

New evidence suggests Google blatantly misled public investors about its own assessment of the antitrust risk involved in Google acquiring AdMob.

On Google's webpage on the AdMob acquisition, in the Q&A section, Google said at the time of the acquisition:   

• Question: "Do you have any concerns about regulatory approval?"
  • Answer: "We don't see any regulatory concerns with this deal..."
• (At the time, Precursorblog posted that Google was clearly misleading people about the antitrust risk the deal faced.)

Now we learn from a Bloomberg/Business Week story:

• "Google CEO Eric Schmidt was so intent on buying AdMob that two people with knowledge of the deal say he agreed to pay a "kill fee" of around $700 million if the deal failed to close for some reason, such as an antitrust motion from the Justice Dept." 

It is important to put this $700m AdMob deal "kill fee" in perspective.

The FCC is vastly understating the systemic risk involved in the FCC's radical "third way" regulatory surgery to the Internet, the communications sector and the economy.

• The FCC's proposed "third way" is an elaborate public relations facade that disguises huge problems and fatal conceptual/practical flaws that will become painfully obvious over time.
• The FCC's proposal is long on politics and soothing rhetoric, but short on real world practicality or legitimacy; it predictably will ultimately collapse under its own weight, complexity and hubris -- unfortunately leaving exceptional carnage in its wake.
• Simply, this proposal is too inherently contradictory and mind-numbingly complex, and too big not to fail.
• This analysis will explain why it is a disaster waiting to happen; it's not a matter of if, but when the "third way" will collapse on itself.

I.  Why this "third way" is a disaster waiting to happen:

The best way to understand what is going on here is to think of the Internet as a brain and the FCC's "third way" proposal as brain surgery to fundamentally rewire how the Internet brain operates at its most basic level.

The Achilles heel of the FCC's announced "Third Way Legal Approach" for regulating the Internet is that it is simply not credible.

Incredible claim #1: The third way "does not involve regulating the Internet."

Many are missing the forest for the trees in jumping to the conclusion that the two-week extension in the FTC's review of Google-AdMob means the FTC is reconsidering the FTC's staff recommendation to block Google-AdMob as anti-competitive.

• Google is cleverly trying to misdirect the focus off Google being the actual #2 in-app mobile advertiser, which is buying the actual #1 AdMob market leader, by talking up the potential competitive advertising threat of a distant #3 player Quattro being bought by non-advertising company Apple.