It may seem at first glance that everyone who is mad at Google is mad for a different reason: direct rivals, copyright holders, companies that advertise with the search engine giant. In fact, putting all the reasons together reveals an uncomfortably familiar pattern of behavior.
In late April, Business Week ran an article that talked about how everybody seemed to be ganging up on Google. The author put together a very impressive list, with no fewer than nine different foes, ranging from single companies (such as eBay) to groups (such as human rights activists and search engine upstarts) to parts of the U.S. government (i.e. the Department of Justice). All of these organizations are gunning for Google, "lining up to keep the search giant in check," according to the article. If Google is feeling a bit embattled by all this, it's certainly no wonder.
But why is everyone mad at Google? What did Google ever do to them? The company was and remains one of the biggest friends that someone doing large amounts of general research on the Internet ever had, and that's hardly something to get angry about. Or is it? Indeed, many of the organizations named in the article must come to grips with the fact that the people who find them online probably do so through Google. In some cases, they also must face the usual problems of being out competed by Google, and not just for customers, as you'll soon see.
The author of the Business Week article explained the reasons each of Google's enemies has for being ticked off at the company. At first glance, it may look like every one of them has a different reason to hate Google. But that's not an accurate picture. It's like looking at a strong magnification of an image made by an inkjet printer - all you see is each little dot, and you need to pull back in order to see the whole image.
In this article, I'm going to focus more on the reasons for anger at Google rather than exactly who is angry at the company. I think you'll see a pattern emerge that we have seen before. I know I'm not the first one to compare Google with Microsoft (who was surprisingly absent from the Business Week list, and should not have been). But the parallels seem to be getting more and more convincing as time goes on.
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