Google’s Reaction to Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo!

In reaction to Microsoft's bid to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion, Google has issued a statement in their official blog. Google senior Vice President David Drummond has described this move as a "hostile bid" and indeed an attempt from Microsoft to monopolise the Internet like it did with the PC, David Drummond also expressed concern about how this would affect the openness of the Internet.

So Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.

Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.

Certainly if the Microsoft-Yahoo merger moves forward it will affect the Internet, however is too early to say much this impact will be. We at Just Search know that this acquisition will not affect significantly how we do either our work or our clients' websites. But as a consumer I hope the Internet's openness, choice and freedom are not compromised.

Tino
SEO Programmer

Listen to this podcast

2 Comments

1. How can Google credibly criticise another company over monopolization?

   Comment by sjsr1979 February 6, 2008 @ 11:19 am

2. Google has no room to speak over monopolisation.
   They’re even trying to grab their cut in paid reviews, something that they’ve criticised so much.

   http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/01/28/google-doing-paid-reviews-via-adsense-why-not/

   Comment by Tino Triste February 19, 2008 @ 2:31 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post
TrackBack URI

Leave a comment