I have to declare this Hate Google Week, where people from all walks of crime declare their disdain of the 'What, me evil?' company.
Who's on the agenda so far?
Stop the Google/Admob Deal!
Sen. Herb Kohl, chairman for the subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, wants the Federal Trade Commission to scrutinize the proposed deal.
(EWeek article to give you the facts that the Wall Street Journal article hides behind its golden firewall.)
Concern about competition. Would give Google 24 percent of mobile ad market. But since all big companies are evil, we can't let it buy anything that would let it take an independent competitor off the market.
What happened to the days when a monopoly was not illegal unless it leverages its monopoly illegally to keep competitors out of the market? What happened to scrutiny of the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, which takes the #2 search engine out of the market? (Search Engine Land article.)
Oh, yeah, that's right. Microsoft would never try to leverage its monopoly unfairly.
Visual artists sue Google over Book scanning
Photographers, illustrators and others want to make sure nobody sees their work again. Google Books could provide them with free marketing by showing off talent that rotting away on library shelves and will never make those artists another dime. Hey, Google, you don't pay, you don't play. Maybe Google can just black out all the art work in the books it scans. Then the artists won't have to worry about it being seen again.
They want tens of thousands of dollars per infringement of each illustration, for which they were originally paid maybe $2,000, tops. Oh, now I see the motivation. Nice scam if you can get it.
Rupert Murdoch is again threatening to block Google from sending readers to his news sites
Mad-Eye Murdy tells the National Press club, "We're going to stop Google and others from taking our content!"
Taking it where, exactly? I thought Google took readers to the full article, not the other way around. Oh, well, we all know, as McMurdy says, that all news sites will charge subscriptions anyway. It's not like you can find the news anywhere else on the Internet.
More to come?
Come on, folks, we've barely scratched the Google logo here. I'm sure we could get another lawsuit or two going.
I know! Google just updated its Maps applet for the Blackberry. (Info Week article) Let's sue Google to stop it from providing apps for mobile phone providers. That'll keep it from getting any more of a monopoly on the Internet mapping market. Then we can sue it again for damaging those smart device suppliers by making them less competitive with Android phones, thus increasing the chances of an Android monopoly.
No news sites were harmed in making this column. Except maybe the Wall Street Journal.
For further articles on Google controversies, please visit RichardLBrandt.com. You can even link to it. I won't sue.