

Critics of Google Antitrust Ruling Fault the Focus - kanamekun
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/technology/googles-rivals-say-ftc-antitrust-ruling-missed-the-point.html

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kanamekun
It's been often said that consumers aren't the real customers of Google... now
competitors are urging the FTC to take that into account in their regulatory
approach: "Instead of considering harm to people who come to Google to search
for information, Google’s competitors and their supporters say that the
government should have been looking at whether Google’s actions harmed its
real customers — the companies that pay billions of dollars each year to
advertise on Google’s site."

The logic is that competitors are forced to advertise on Google, driving up
prices for everyone in that category: "Drawing fewer customers as a result of
Google’s free links, those competitors are forced to advertise more to draw
traffic. And advertisers who aren’t competitors have fewer places to go to
reach consumers, meaning Google can use its market power to raise advertising
prices."

