Google Faces Possible Anti-Cartel Investigation - Europe Considers Review
(Page 4 of 4 )
The agreement hasn't gone unnoticed outside of the United States. Competition officials of the European Commission have announced their intention to undertake their own review. Competition spokesperson Jonathan Todd has said that as far back as mid-July the Commission took the decision to "open a preliminary investigation on our own initiative into potential effects of the Google-Yahoo agreement on competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) market."
The EC is making this move despite Yahoo's and Google's claim that the deal would only take force in the United States and Canada. Certainly the EC believes there are grounds for concern that the influence of it will be felt at a much wider level.
Whatever the final outcome, this kind of attention is the last thing Google needs at the end of a terrible year. The luster has finally been stripped from a company that has until now been seen as one of the good guys, even as an ally of ordinary people against big business and corporate values.
At a time when the threadbare value system of the corporate world is being ruthlessly exposed through the tribulations of America's biggest financial institutions, Google might reasonably have expected to find itself gaining credibility. Indeed, one can't deny the good it has tried to accomplish with the Google Foundation and other initiatives, to say nothing of its main task of helping many millions of users find useful information on the Internet.
Instead, however, Google continues to struggle to preserve its ever-diminishing reputation. As Jeffrey Chester points out, "making money shouldn't be the sole motivation for behavior." More importantly, he believes that Google at the very least "should have been able to acknowledge that a major deal with its leading search competitor raises serious questions worthy of broad debate and critical analysis."
Sadly this seems to be a lesson the Internet's biggest player still has to learn. For its own sake and ours, let's hope it does so before such a realization is forced on it from above.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
