Google dominates the internet, it’s powerful and simple to use search interface offers good levels of return to advertisers investing in online marketing campaigns. Since 2005, at which time Google had just 36.5% of the market compared to Yahoo’s 30%, Google’s popularity began to grow to an astonishing 63% of the market in 2009, where as Yahoo is floundering as 21%. This is testament to Google’s ongoing commitment to improving the service they provide their customers, offering good levels of return to advertisers and serving exciting and relevant information to the end user. So why is this a problem?
Barack Obama has appointed Christine Varney to take over the top antitrust position of the US Department of Justice. It has been noted that Christine Varney has already taken an interest in Google and has discussed the subject to some length.
“For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem,” Varney reportedly said during a panel discussion last summer. She suggested that Google, “has acquired a monopoly in internet online advertising”.
These comments along with Varneys background as a lawyer working for Netscape during the monumental Microsoft case, have led to the speculation that the US Department of Justice could be ready to start investigating an AntiTrust case against Google. Will Google suffer the same fate as Microsoft in the late 90’s?
