

Google Was Three Hours Away From Being Charged As A Monopolist - jmorin007
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/03/google-was-three-hours-away-from-being-charged-as-a-monopolist/

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snprbob86
I'm confused. I thought monopolies in the US are legal. I thought that abusing
the power of a monopoly was the illegal part. Were they going to charge them
as being a monopoly? Or charge them with illegal monopolistic practices?

Is there a lawyer in the house?

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gwc
IANAL, but it is my understanding that at issue here is the deal would (could)
have created / extended a monopoly. Antitrust in the US does not disallow
monopolies, per se, as you note; however, it does disallow creation or
furthering of a monopoly via contracts, M&A, conspiracies, collusion, etc.

From US Code Title 15, Chapter 1, § 1: _Every contract, combination in the
form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce
among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal._

Source:
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_0...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode15/usc_sec_15_00000001
----000-.html)

The other sections of that chapter discuss some specifics (such as §18, which
specifically covers M&A) and there is a wealth of case law backing it up and
clarifying, as well.

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mattmaroon
I don't know why they ever went forward with this. When your market share is
70% and climbing, you really have to watch out for these sorts of things. The
relatively minor profits they would have made from Yahoo aren't worth making
anyone in the DoJ think twice about you.

I guess when it came down to it, they decided that taking that risk was better
than Microsoft ending up with Yahoo, which makes Yahoo's decision not to sell
even more ludicrous. As Sun Tzu said (loosely paraphrased) figure out what
your opponent wants you to do and then do the opposite.

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gojomo
Google may never have expected the move to pass antitrust review. Even as a
feint, this proposal sufficed to drive MS away from Yahoo, which Yahoo's
management at the time also wanted.

~~~
mattmaroon
Yeah, I don't know. Probably. Just seems risky to even put the notion in the
DoJ's collective head that you need watching for monopoly concerns. Maybe less
risky than having a combined Microhoo competitor, idk. If I'm Yahoo and I
think that one through, it would make me want to sell more, but then I guess I
would have said "sold" the minute the original offer came in.

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nikils
I am not much familiar with anti trust laws. Can a foreign firm make this deal
with Yahoo ? If yes then Google can create a proxy firm to make the deal, will
it still be considered monopoly ?

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vaksel
this probably means that instead of trying to look for high profile deals,
Google will instead spend the money acquiring some startups with a growth
potential

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sh1mmer
Techcrunch seems down. Hm.

~~~
sh1mmer
Oh and to summarize the story. According to a DOJ consultant Sanford Litvack
Google they were 3 hours away from filing anti-trust charges against Google
when the plug was pulled on the Yahoo! deal.

Another source here:
[http://www.techflash.com/Report_Google_Yahoo_were_three_hour...](http://www.techflash.com/Report_Google_Yahoo_were_three_hours_away_from_antitrust_complaint35499814.html)

