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.”
