Yahoo

With the 3Q08 earnings releases by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in the last few days, DOJ antitrust investigators of the Google-Yahoo partnership now get their first fresh look at the most recent revenue and profit market shares for this market.

Saul Hansell's New York Times blog post on "The FTC Bully Pulpit on Privacy" discussing the FTC privacy chief's views on privacy, did a public service in flagging an unnecessary and problematic gap in the Federal Trade Commission's protection of Americans' privacy.

I testified this morning on Internet Privacy issues before Chairman Markey's Internet Subcommittee. My Testimony.

My message was straightforward:

Anyone interested in Google's increasing dominance or the Google-Yahoo partnership should read Andrew Orlowski's great piece in The Register: "Google the mother of antirust battles?"

• It is always helpful to get an insightful and different perspective from "across the pond."   

Blogging from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, there was a very surprising development several minutes ago.

• Chairman Kohl characterized as "pretty explosive stuff" how Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith recounted what Yahoo Ceo Jerry Yang told Microsoft last month in a meeting with several witnesses.
• Per Microsoft's Smith: Jerry Yang said that the search market was "bi-polar" with Google on one pole and others on the other pole.
  • Yang indicated that Yahoo was going to join the Google "pole" because the other pole was not viable. 

Under oath, Senator Spector followed up on the Chairman's interchange and asked Brad Smith if he stood by this characterization of CEO Yang's "bipolar" comments -- and he replied "absolutely!"

In advance of the Senate and House antitrust hearings on Google-Yahoo, I thought it would be useful to debunk some of the primary antitrust myths you will likely hear.

Myth #1: There can’t be an antitrust problem as long as consumers are just one click away from a competitive search engine.

With Senate and House antitrust hearings on Google-Yahoo next Tuesday, the timing of Yahoo's new BOSS initiative, Build your Own Search Service, is designed to try and show that Yahoo is still trying to compete with Google after Yahoo partnered with Google "to enhance its ability to compete in the converging search and display marketplace."

Check out the 45 word "headline" on Yahoo's press release on BOSS. There will be a short quiz afterward.

Don't miss the Op Ed by Richard Bennett today in the San Francisco Chronicle on net neutrality, Google's leadership of the issue, privacy, and the Google-Yahoo partnership.

• As usual, Richard is insightful, incisive and interesting.

Just learned that the Senate Judiciary SubCommittee on Antitrust has scheduled a hearing on the Google-Yahoo agreement for Tuesday July 15th, at 10:30 am.

• "The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing before the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights on “The Google-Yahoo Agreement and the Future of Internet Advertising” for Tuesday, July 15, 2008, at 10:30 a.m. in Room 226 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building. Chairman Kohl will preside. By order of the Chairman."

The House Judiciary Committee is expected to have a hearing that same afternoon on the Google-Yahoo deal, Internet competition and privacy.

A new article/study by Harvard Business School Professor Anita Elberse challenges the validity of the Silicon Valley mantra/theory that the Internet created a new "long tail" of demand for niche products that would ultimately undermine and overwhelm the offline trend towards "big hits."