If I was to badmouth Google after reading the article, and especially their tactic of tying-in the experience, and using youtube and google ranking to induce people to open and use a google plus account, I'd say they are leveraging their existing monopolies to acquire another monopoly in a separated industry.
Naysayers would say that's an emotional response, but I would then let monopoly be defined by known indexes such as the HI and leave the conclusion to arithmetic instead of emotions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index
I haven't done the calculation, but we may find interesting results - and I say that while I think google + is being turned into a nice product, with useless cruft being removed little by little, and some polish added. IMHO only the legality of their tactic is troubling - the product is becoming good.
Naysayers would say that's an emotional response, but I would then let monopoly be defined by known indexes such as the HI and leave the conclusion to arithmetic instead of emotions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index
I haven't done the calculation, but we may find interesting results - and I say that while I think google + is being turned into a nice product, with useless cruft being removed little by little, and some polish added. IMHO only the legality of their tactic is troubling - the product is becoming good.
But would it have if they hadn't played dirty?
I guess it's legal if you are not getting caught.