There has long been speculation among Internet experts and online marketers that Google is becoming a monopoly on line. The company’s most famous product, the Google search engine, has dominated the online search world for years now, buying up competitors or in some cases simply regulating them to “D list” status. Even the mammoth yahoo.com continues to lose search engine ground to the Mountain View California-based Google, Inc.
Advertising revenues from Google’s AdSense and AdWords programs continue to grow well beyond expectations. For example, Google’s third-quarter profits in 2007 soared by a stunning 46%, raising Google’s stock price over $100 in the past month alone. Google’s total earnings for the third quarter were $1.07 billion. Compare this figure to last year’s third-quarter earnings of 733 million dollars.
But with its closest competitors so far behind in both the search engines and online advertising categories, could Google be approaching monopoly status? Online marketers, in particular, already claim that Google controls too much Internet “real estate,” and has effectively squeezed competitors out of the market.
Of course, the question of whether Google is too big or not largely depends on your point of view. For example, online publishers and advertisers that are profiting from Google’s growth and expanding advertising network would likely have no problem with Google’s size. But smaller startups, competing search engines and online media companies find that, more and more, the Internet is becoming a one lane highway, and that lane belongs to Google.
Already there is a backlash online to the “Googlization” of the Internet, and despite the company’s rising stock prices, there seems no shortage of competitors willing to wade into the search market waters. Online advertising is another area where Google appears vulnerable. Several new start ups are focusing on specific segments of the market and one new online advertising solution caters entirely to the burgeoning EU market, an area where Google is not “untouchable.” At least not yet…
But as Google, Inc. continues to roll out new products, such as Google Apps, Gmail, Google calendar, Google Desktop and Google News, the Big Brother comparisons begin to have more credibility. Google’s recent acquisition of youtube.com, for example has placed the company on the wrong side of many Hollywood media moguls. The company is currently embroiled in several billion-dollar lawsuits regarding the use of copyrighted material on Youtube.
The outcome of these trials, and the resulting publicity could have a great effect on Google’s future. Will they be able to continue their domination of both online search and advertising? Many experts are skeptical. No matter how unassailable Google appears today, it is unlikely that they can continue their current rate of meteoric growth without encountering serious competition in one or more areas of their current online “monopoly.”
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