Update: Just after I hit publish Betanews put out yet another flawed post on a Google monopoly, this time on search.  I understand it’s about grabbing pageviews or whatnot, but a quick looksee at a dictionary would really help out when you start bandying about terms you don’t understand.

It seems about once a year, I have to take some pundit behind the woodshed and school them on the definition of “monopoly” as it relates to Google’s business in advertising or search.  The first time I virtually met my buddy Steven Hodson was in response to a post he had done on Google’s “monopoly” on search. In it, he contended that Google was dangerously close to monopoly, if not already there, in the search market:

For years; rightly or wrongly, Microsoft has been having to deal with claims of monopoly this and monopoly that. They were forced by the EU to first come up with a version of Windows XP with things removed from it which has proved to be one of the worst selling versions of the software next to WinME. Even now they are still under the thumb of the DoJ in the US.

If Microsoft ever tried to pull stunts like that you would see the hounds of DoJ hell be let loose on them quicker than you can say Bob’s yer uncle. Yet, Google does stuff like this though and they just park another private 747 over at Moffett Field.

I am not saying that Microsoft hasn’t deserved a lot of the flack they have gotten but is it equally right that a corporation with absolutely no accountability to its users when it comes to AdSense or some of its business practices in foreign countries shouldn’t face the same scrutiny.

My response didn’t delve much into the substance of his arguments (that Google may have serious problems in their search algorithm), but the premise that Google had a monopoly on search:

What gets Google the pass? It is easy to point to their good PR, and their “do no evil” moniker. Shoemoney blog points to their philanthropic donation of $200+ million to Mozilla. If that’s not charitable enough for you, you can always take a gander at Google.org, and their contributions to climate change and public health research. With prominent positive PR like that, it’s easy to overlook any negative or monopolistic moves Google might make.

To answer directly, though, the question of monopolies by Google, Microsoft, or anyone else in the tech business, I took myself back to basic economics class and did some research on the terminology and the math behind it. I wanted to peg this answer as best I could, and get a grasp of what our terminology means in the most literal sense. A monopoly is defined by a persistent situation where there is only one provider of a product or service in a particular market. Further, one of the main dangers, at least on the consumer side, is that monopolies inhibit innovation, slow down advancements, as well as give the monopoly holders license to raise rates for the product to heights that are considered gouging.

Search is not the product – you and your search queries are the product. Those, in turn, are sold to the advertisers. In the world of advertising (or even the world of online advertising), Google is not the sole competitor. There are many other very strong competitors in online advertising. While Google does own a significant portion (or even majority share) of a certain types of the online advertising market, it in no way can be called a monopoly.

Some time after that, though, Google acquired display-ad giant Doubleclick, and roars of privacy and antitrust violations circled the media drain for months afterward, particularly after President Obama appointed to the antitrust division of the Justice Department renowned Google hater Christine Varney.

President Barack Obama’s pick for the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust unit, Christine Varney, has strong feelings towards what she perceives as Google’s potential monopoly on online computing services. Before scoring the Obama administration gig, Varney compared the search giant to Microsoft in the 90s: “For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem. [The economy] will continually see a problem — potentially with Google [because it] has acquired a monopoly in Internet online advertising.” So, could Varney’s record of aggressive advocacy of antitrust law enforcement mean Google will have to face a possible break up?

My response then is the same it has been every other time Christine Varney’s name has disgraced our site since:

So, if we assume that Ms. Varney actually knows the meaning of monopoly as a term (and was just posturing in her statements to the media), then Google is quite safe.

Google is by far not the only purveyor of advertisement on the web.  Certainly, they dominate the market because they are by far the most dominant website on the Internet. You can’t separate their ads from their website.  You cannot give half the Google database of search results to a different search engine. It doesn’t work like that.

Meanwhile, Google isn’t inhibiting innovation.  As any self-publisher will tell you, Google AdSense is the Ford Pinto of online ads.  They’re crappy, don’t work very well, and just about anyone can afford it.

In essence, they’re encouraging innovation by sucking so badly.  The first person to make an ad network that works better than Google could take the world by storm.

Today, though, like clockwork every year, the Myth of the Google Monopoly reared it’s ugly head once again in a post by Betanews’ Joe Wilcox:

The European Union’s preliminary antitrust investigation of Google isn’t the least surprising. But the timing is shockingly foreshadowing.

In December 2007, when Google announced the DoubleClick acquisition, I blogged: “The Google Monopoly Begins.” I asserted that the acquisition would change everything about Google’s search and advertising dominance and perceptions about the company’s growing status as gatekeeper to all online information. The preliminary antitrust investigation comes as Google makes major changes to DoubleClick with hopes of boosting its display advertising business. The changes mark the final Googlefication of DoubleClick — or the realistic, final integration of the acquisition into Google.

Joe, like so many other pundits and antitrust investigators before him, simply can’t be bothered to look up the definition of monopoly.

For Joe and his friends at the EU and US antitrust divisions, here’s a real easy way to do it: click here. It goes directly to a Google search for “define:monopoly.” Don’t trust Google? That’s fine, my friend Sean P. Aune decided to use the “dictionary.com” – it’s free and easy! Just click here. Our professional experience with a combined total of around fifty or sixty years reading comprehension between us? There’s nothing there that remotely comes close to the Wilcox-Varney definition of a Google Monopoly.

I could go on for another thousand words or so on how ridiculous of a hole Wilcox digs himself into in his “Google produces nothing” supporting arguments (for instance, a US President produces nothing either, but many might argue they still perform a valuable service).

Truth is here that while Google dominates search and advertising, they aren’t impervious. Facebook is knocking on Google’s back door in terms of attention, and already drives more traffic to the average publisher than Google does. I’ve discussed many times in the past here at SiliconANGLE as well as at public talks the opportunity for boutique ad firms and networks to cash in on the deficiency that is Google’s ad networks.

Simply put, the only reason you’d think Google has a monopoly on anything is if you don’t understand what the word means.  Considering how many people think Google has a monopoly in positions of power, that’s a scary prospect indeed.