Free Essay

Google Trust

In: Business and Management

Submitted By sigkaptink
Words 442
Pages 2
Webster defines monopoly as “exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action.” In the news lately, stories of the big bad monopolies abound. We constantly hear of government regulation in software, utilities, transportation, and financial institutions. The justice department closely scrutinizes mergers and acquisitions so that firms don't end up with too much market power. However, pure monopolies are very rare. Even the threat of serious competition entering the market forces the existing firm to act conscionably, and differently from how it would act otherwise.
Recently, the internet search giant Google was under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission on suspicion of violating antitrust legislation. In 2011, Yelp Inc. filed a complaint that Google was using excerpts from other websites in their search results. Even though Google agreed to exclude other company’s “snippets” upon request, this complaint launched the investigation by the FTC. Other companies, including Microsoft, complained that Google highlights its own services first on the results page. The FTC found that even though “Google took aggressive actions to gain advantage over rival search providers… the FTC's mission is to protect competition, and not individual competitors.” The only concerns the FTC seemed to have with Google were the patents they acquired in their purchase on Motorola Mobility in 2012. Google agreed “to a consent decree that will require the company to charge "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" prices to license hundreds of patents deemed essential to the operations of mobile phones, tablet computers, laptops and video game players.” Google also consented to amend the online advertising system that generates most of its revenue so marketing campaigns can be more easily managed on rival search engines.
Even if Google is guilty of antitrust violations that the FTC didn’t find, being a monopoly isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It has been a common belief that utilities companies are good monopolies since they are much more efficient and reliable as such. Also, size and success of a company isn’t a result of illegal antitrust activity. Other search engines exist, like Bing and Yahoo, and it isn’t Google’s fault that they figured out how to please both consumers and business with their practices and results.

References
Liedtke, Michael (2013). Google emerges from FTC probe relatively unscathed. AP Top News Package. Retrieved January 24, 2013, from: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/delivery?sid=7f5e3092-9bff-425a-b57c-2883955c85b7%40sessionmgr15&vid=6&hid=14
McConnell, C., Brue, S., & Flynn, S. (2011).Economics. (19e ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
SparkNotes Editors. (n.d.). SparkNote on Monopolies & Oligopolies. Retrieved January 24, 2013, from http://www.sparknotes.com/economics/micro/monopolies/

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