I just have to say something on the prosecution’s proposal to break up Google. It’s not really a breakup. It’s more of a requirement to force the company to sell off a division. The court already ruled that Google is a monopoly, hmm, gee, surprise! Everyone who has ever searched the web knew that. How many times have you entered search parameters only to have a paid advertiser website(s) come up first in priority? Google doesn’t provide honest searches. It provides web searchers with the content that it wants them to have, and that is the websites of paid advertisers. That’s a monopoly. The prosecution wants Google to sell off the Chrome browser and provide data to the competition, but I think the court should go further.
I think the court should break up Google in 7 regional companies that compete with each other. (The stockholders won’t be hurt, because they would get stock in all seven companies.) There are many precedents for this for those of you younger than 60.
First, ATT which held a monopoly was broken up by the court into seven regional companies. Likewise, Standard Oil under monopolist John Rockefeller was also forced to break up, which is how the U.S. ended up with all those competing brands. And guess what, in both cases, not only did the owners end up with greater value in total a few years after the breakups, but the country ended up with more competition, lower pricing, and more advancement in technology.
Everyone benefited. (Well, maybe not everyone; management of the monopoly company never wants to break up their kingdom because it means fewer people to manage and lower compensation for them.)
Look at how cellular phones took off after the breakup. Imagine…do you think that Steve Jobs could have invented the iphone if ATT still existed with their monopoly, ready to kill off any competition that threatens its power base? Likewise with Kodak, which held pretty much a monopoly as well on film and photo processing. Kodak invented the digital camera and then, management, realizing the threat to their jobs if digital technology ever escaped their corporate closet, threw it into the closet and locked the door. Not until after that patents expired, if I recall, was a young startup called GoPro able re-engineer and re-invent digital cameras and then go on to crush Kodak and put them out of business. That’s what monopolists do, they crush the competition, they destroy or hide new technology that threatens their business, and they keep it all a secret. Did you know that ATT (“ma bell”) used to own the phone in your house and rent it to you? Yea.
Imagine seven regional Googles competing with each other? (The court would need to prohibit the regional Googles are not allowed to merge back together or buy each other – ever.) A whole new era of technological advancement would take place as the regional Googles compete for customers.
And by the way, the court should order Google to provide the closest search result to what a user requested rather than what an advertiser wants them to see. There’s so much manipulation going …I’m sick of it. Lastly, Google’s CEO actually claimed consumers would be worst off with a breakup and that their customers privacy would be at risk. Ha! What a joke. We all know the tech giants are selling our data to everyone they can. There is no privacy to our data. What the CEO really meant is, he’d have competition for the sale of that data… and he doesn’t want that. He wants his monopoly. ‘Nuff said.
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