Google: US antitrust regulator was totally right to let us off the hook nearly 10 years ago

Google has bitten back at fresh reports that the ad giant had a fortuitous escape nearly a decade ago, when American antitrust regulators opted not to sue. It has also seized the opportunity to take another swipe at its arch-rival, Microsoft. The piece by Rosie Lipscomb, Google's Director of Competition Legal, is in response …

[Robert Grant]

Strangely, Lipscomb failed to mention the stratospheric growth of Google's parent company, Alphabet, which is currently one of the world's largest technology businesses, despite lacking Microsoft's diversified portfolio.

This doesn't seem strange at all.

[A. Coatsworth]

I guess the author wanted to write "hypocritically", but it wouldn't pass the editors

[Dinanziame]

despite lacking Microsoft's diversified portfolio.

Really? I would have put Alphabet's portfolio as more diversified than Microsoft's. Google has 8 or 9 distinct products with over a billion users. As far as I can tell, Microsoft only has Windows and Word over that bar. Maybe Excel and Outlook, but I doubt it. Alphabet also has weird stuff like self-driving cars, internet balloons and Go-playing AI...

Also, Alphabet is "one of the world's largest technology businesses", but Microsoft is in fact even larger... so?

[gerryg]

Market dominance <> abuse of a dominant position

I have no insight into any company's practices. I do have personal experience of which company's products play nice with other companys' products. Being dominant in a market is not anti-competitive. Abusing that dominant position is the offence. Obviously companies that have failed to gain market share are free to use whatever legal means are at their disposal to do something about it.

I have no idea if the consumer benefits from all the dead weight costs of lobbying, advertising, astroturfing, litigation, patent protection and all the categories I've missed.

I understand that until recently Microsoft made more money from Android than Google did, it might still be true, because of patent royalties.

I do know it was Google that gave away the rights to its Motorola patent portfolio to protect Free and Open Source Software.

Despite being free in all senses of the word LibreOffice has failed to achieve much market share and often wonder why. People that don't use it tell me it is because it isn't good enough though I've often wondered "good enough for what?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Market dominance <> abuse of a dominant position

"I understand that until recently Microsoft made more money from Android than Google did, it might still be true, because of patent royalties."

What you don't understand is that Google is very much /voluntarily/ not making money from Android, because it prefers to earn it from the private data Android collects from users tied into its ecosystem.