A massive new multiplayer version of Monopoly has been launched in association with Google, the world is now your play ground, buy property on any street anywhere in the world!

On the 9th of September, Hasbro will launch Monopoly City Streets. This massive online version of the famous board game will only be available for a 4 month period but the good news is its completely free. The Free game uses Google maps or the open source Open Street Maps as the playing field. Hasbro claims it will be “the biggest game of Monopoly of all time” and players will be able to purchase almost “any street in the world”.

As with the traditional board game, the idea behind the game is to make as much money as possible through purchasing property from different location. The more property you have, the more rent you can earn, the larger your income.

Each new player will start the game with 3 million monopoly dollars. Once a player owns a street they can purchase, sell and rent properties. Streets can also be traded or sold to other players.

The Hasbro have also introduced a chance card, which allow players to sabotage rivals by building rubbish dumps, prisons or wind farms on their property to reduce the value of properties and rent on a specific street. Players can only remove a hazard by bulldozing a lot clean, but this again requires the appropriate chance card.

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On February 11 2009, 29 MP’s signed an Early Day Motion explaining their concerns about Google’s dominance in the search advertising marketplace. The motion urged ministers to “consider measures to prevent the monopolisation of the online search advertising market.” It has come to light that this year Google has increased its share of the online marketplace to over 90%. The motion was supported by 25 Labour MPs, one Conservative, two Liberal Democrats and a member of the Scottish National Party.

Andrew Dismore, a Labour MP supporting the motion said, “A monopoly is unhealthy, Google cornering the market is not good for competitive pricing or quality of service. The Government should recognise that there is a potential problem.”

“The Competition Commission should draw up recommendations to protect consumers – in this case, the people buying the advertising.”

Is Google suffering from its own success? Google does not set the price of its advertising; the cost is driven and set but the advertiser, bidding for position in an auction style environment. Competition dictates the marketplace and this has long been seen as a fair method of determining ad placement.

“On the internet, competition is literally one click away,” said a Google spokesman. “We have to prove our value to our users and advertisers every day, because if they’re unhappy with Google, there’s nothing preventing them from switching to another search engine.”

Technorati Tags: Google, google monopoly, google Mps, google news, google uk government, search engine news, search news

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?

Technorati Tags: christine varney, Google, google antitrust, google court case, google monopoly, google Obama