The In-Progress Plot To Kill Google 234
twitter writes "Four years after Steve Ballmer vowed to kill Google, Wired details Microsoft's, AT&T's, and big publishers' ongoing slog. The story is filled with astroturfers, lobbyists and others spending millions to manufacture FUD about privacy and monopoly in order to protect the obsolete business models of their patrons, who are mostly known for progress-halting monopoly and invasion of privacy. Their greatest coup to date was preventing Google from rescuing Yahoo."
Re:Is it FUD if there's some truth to it? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about the bank that keeps your money? (Score:3, Informative)
So use Yahoo for your email, Google for your search, amazon for your purchases... shall I go on?
Re:conspiracy theories (Score:5, Informative)
You forgot to mention that Yahoo is still very big in south-east Asia. In some countries their mail and messenger services are number one.
Re:conspiracy theories (Score:3, Informative)
I'm curious how Google's mail folders don't make sense. It was implied in your statement that Yahoo's folders make sense. I normally use my gmail through Outlook (have to use it at work for the exchange server) but from what I remember it has an inbox, outbox, archive, and spam folders by default and then you can make your own labels to organize how you want. And those become their own folders when you use a client and gmail with IMAP.
So how are Yahoo's better? Or are they the same?
Re:Since when are concerns about privacy FUD? (Score:2, Informative)
Well what did Microsoft do? Instead of convincing the DOJ on the merits of why this would be a bad deal industry-wise, it sent lobbyists around to advertisers simply to scare them into voicing concern (didn't even have to be opposition) to the DOJ, thereby scuttling the deal because it seemed like third parties were going to suffer (advertisers aren't since Google uses an auction model - thus the prices advertisers pay is closely related to market value).
AT&T really dislikes Google because they use bandwidth & AT&T doesn't get a cut (I guess). Also, apparently AT&T also want's to get into the advertising gig (according to the article), hence the reason for opposing Google (try to weaken them now before beginning to compete). Google's attempt to open up the telecoms disgusting stranglehold of wireless technology probably didn't endear them with AT&T (also jacking up the price during the wireless spectrum auction didn't help AT&T either). I think that's probably a more likely reason for the animosity than AT&T going into advertising.
So what you've got is two really really bad, convicted as illegal monopolies opposing Google. These two companies have historically tried to screw the customer (and arguably still do quite frequently). So the question is, whose motives do you trust in this case? It seemed like the Yahoo deal would have actually kept Yahoo solvent for a little longer and had no monopoly effects - Yahoo would get the same revenue deal other Adsense partners get with no exclusivity requirements (Yahoo could switch to another partner at any time if they wanted).
The reality is that Microsoft hated that Yahoo rejected them (and then going into bed with Google must have caused some chair-related weather events in Seattle). This was a completely retaliatory act to prevent Yahoo from remaining a financially stable company (look at the position they're in now). The CEO that insulted Microsoft also had to resign for rejecting the Microsoft deal (since the Google deal fell through). Thus, they are much weaker company and probably won't be able to reject an even lower offer from Microsoft if it ever comes. Microsoft however now has all the power. If Yahoo goes under, they get rock bottom prices on some valuable technology (not that they'll be able to do anything with it thankfully if history shows us anything). Even if it doesn't, Microsoft can get a much cheaper price now on a hostile takeover (or even a non-hostile takeover would come at a significantly cheaper price than a year ago).
This had nothing to do with any kind of worrying about consumers from Microsoft's POV. It was strictly a "how can we retaliate against Yahoo, screw Google, & maybe get our own deal back" action & they browbeat advertisers into thinking this somehow affected them. This is Microsoft's continuation of its good ol' 80s & 90s tactics of screwing over competitors.
Is that a sufficient evaluation of why their claims are bogus?
As for the privacy issue, the effort of tying all the information (especially if you want accuracy) within Google is an extreme amount of work. The question is whether or not there's any value for Google - I seriously doubt that as their Adsense model probably won't get better with the kind of ancillary information that would be present in their other services (it might even get worse if the data just overspecifies the actual function).
It would be nice if there were some governmental guidelines for privacy, but at this point Google has so far demonstrated to be a way more trustworthy company (in terms of technical competence preventing leaks & from a socially competent way of not abusing that information). Microsoft & AT&T however do not have that luxury. I find it especially hilarious that AT&T is talking about consumer privacy - did everyone already forgetting that whole wiretapping business?
Also, when was the last time you sent Google any money? End-users at the end of the day do not pay Google anything. There are 4 groups involved - advertisers pay, websites make money, Google gets a cut, and users get free content.
Re:conspiracy theories (Score:1, Informative)
No, and here's why: Yahoo's targeted advertising product (Overture) is second only to Google's, and has coverage and large market share in several areas of the world that Google doesn't even cover. In the online ad business, you can do as much work as you want with algorithms and selection, but if you don't have a healthy distribution of people vying for ad space, you're going to have a hard time coming up with results that are both relevant to your user's search AND makes money. Part of the reason Live Search's ads suck so much is the sparsity in their advertiser ecosystem.
Incidentally there is something of a monopoly situation going on here, as Live Search relies on Overture for ads in all their markets but the US, and Overture recently tried to write into their ad delivery contract terms about what Live Search could put elsewhere on their page during the whole buyout scuffle, presumably at the behest of Google.
Re:conspiracy theories (Score:3, Informative)
Two tags in gmail map to a tag1/tag2 folder hierarchy when you download that message via IMAP. When you upload something back to gmail, it will be stuffed with a single tag called "path/to/message".
Possibly that's what the GP meant.
Re:conspiracy theories (Score:5, Informative)
I'm curious how Google's mail folders don't make sense. It was implied in your statement that Yahoo's folders make sense.
Going out on a limb here, as it's been several years since I abandoned my Yahoo email for my own mail server--- in my mother's basement, under my bed, next to my star wars underpants--- but I think it might be a "tags" vs "folders" issue. I've had one of my brother's friends tell me he didn't like Gmail because when you create a new "folder" for mail and a filter to sort it by, mail gets "copied" to two different folders! That's how it's supposed to work, but some folks just can't get over the fact that they have a Gmail tag for Ewok discussions and one for eBay auctions and that the email saying they've won an Ewok TV tray on eBay shows up IN BOTH PLACES!!!!1! Tags are a more flexible sorting system, but they require a certain mental shift to grok, and some people just have that "eighty column mind" thing going.
Google as advertising monopoly (Score:2, Informative)
It's the advertisers who are unhappy with Google. Google is approaching a monopoly in targeted online advertising; they bought DoubleClick, which got them up to 70%, and if they picked up Yahoo, they'd hit 90%. Advertisers are not happy about that. It's as if there were only one TV station or one newspaper nationally. (RCA, in the 1930s, once proposed a system by which the entire US would have one nationwide radio station, broadcast over three giant AM transmitters. That ran into antitrust problems.)
Remember, Google is an ad agency. That's where the money comes from. Search is just a traffic builder for the ads.
Re:WHY the hell it cant be heroism ? or goodwill ? (Score:5, Informative)
Google made this pretty clear [usatoday.com] when they IPO'd -- their letter to investors said that they were not trying to be just another corporation. They specified that the stocks the customers were getting was a claim on the profits, not a claim on voting rights.
Essentially, as long as the insiders stay honest, the company will stay honest. The quarterly numbers, stock prices are all meaningless to the board in this case.
Re:conspiracy theories (Score:3, Informative)