Trips to the DMV: EU sues Google, and Yelp agrees.
What search engine monopoly?
Oh you mean the one where the European Union stands to make $2.7 billion in a lawsuit....
When it becomes easier to for a CEO to generate value for his company by negotiating with the government and manipulating public image than negotiating with the competition, there is no free market.
The last I checked, the web could be searched with plenty of other search engines besides Google's. Yelp supports government intervention because they are in direct competition with Google's own business ratings. Yelp doesn't like having their results below the top listed ads which Google's customers paid to have listed.
Google makes money from their ad revenue. Advertisers pay for high visibility because that makes us, the free (FREE!!!) users of Google's search engine more likely to click over to their site. We get the best search engine (so far) available. Advertisers get more clicks. Google makes money. Sounds like everyone is happy...
....except Googles competition and the government that stands to profit by crafting the politicians wet dream of "Finding a cause to fight for!"
Political causes are worth money and votes. Get enough people interested in a cause and you have an easy stump. Try to pass the legislation that your supporters want and you can be seen as a "Champion of the poeople!" Even better, if your legislation fails to pass, your cause gives you shelter from the backlash of your consituates by giving you a weapon to wield against politcal opponents. "See, I tried to give you, my people, just what you wanted and those evil Republicans / Democrats / Right wingers / neo-cons / liberals / leftists stopped it! They are evil! Send me back and elect me again so that we can fight the good fight together! I will see to it that we succeed!"
The politicians that make up our government can't lose with a cause behind them. Of course there will be politicians that take this road to success. They would be stupid to pass up the opportunity.
But what if you believe that Google really is doing something very disgusting and should be punished for it. Who will see that justice is done? You will.
Don't like the way Google does business? There are plenty of other search engines. Use them. Right now the tools that Google provides make it a very easy choice for a default search engine on my devices. When that changes, I'll take my search traffic elsewhere.
So, what is the advantage of stealing $2.7 billion of Google's resources? Do we expect a better search engine? Will we be creating value for the advertisers or the search engine users?
This money will not punish the leadership of Google, and fix the 'problem' of Google's supposed monopoly. The money won't come out of management's pockets. The money will just be taken out of the company's coffers and the costs passed down to us in some fashion, most likely through higher advertising costs. Google will then slowly recover it's lost revenue.
In the meantime that means less great services from them as the company will logically spend more money on building up it's defenses from the government and less on innovation. Management will not have a choice.
How would you rather see Google's money spent: developing new, exciting products and tools for free for us to use, or by giving the money to the government and hoping they find a better use for 2.7 billion dollars than what Google would have created with the money?
Unless you enjoy trips to the D.M.V., it's really not a hard choice.