Internet Stuuffs

Google Empire vs. Microsoft Empire

Microsoft submitted a hostile take over bid of Yahoo Inc. in January. Yahoo execs spurned the offer saying that it was ‘too low’ but Microsoft hasn’t given up as they met with Yahoo to pitch the idea of a combined company. Anyone who uses the internet on a daily basis knew that Google would inevitably throw their $0.02 in and finally they have done so.

A news post on Yahoo states that Google claims if MS takes over Yahoo that bad things will happen to the internet. They don’t specifically mention it, but allude to the Internet Explorer vs. Netscape Navigator debacle that put the small company (Netscape) in the hands of AOL, who shut down the browser earlier this year.

While Google is busy pointing out the past failings and misgivings of Microsoft they fail to mention that they, themselves are guilty of seeking a near monopoly to capitalize on the internet. The Google + DoubleClick deal could give the internet giant control of the largest advertising network on the internet and make it near impossible for competitors to enter the arena. Not to mention their purchasing of numerous other sites from YouTube to Blogger to help corner internet users and spread their influence.

Google also recently decided to force webmasters that want to be ranked well in their search engine to stop selling links on their websites. Webmasters who are caught selling links without adding the ‘no follow’ tag will get penalized by Google and dropped in the companies internet ‘rankings’. For some webmaster this means a loss of thousands of dollars over the course of a year. It also effectively shrivels the market for companies like Text-Link-Ads that had sprung up around this revenue stream. Some speculate that Google designed this to drive more webmasters into using their ‘Ad Words’ program.

So while you may not support Microsoft purchasing Yahoo!, the real question is… can we continue to let Google go unchecked?

p.s. Google, News Corp, Microsoft. If you are reading this, my blog is for sale. Only a cheap $100 million