Posted 08/06/09 at 09:43:19 AM by Paul Lilly

In October of last year, Google reached a $125 million settlement as part of a three-year-old class action lawsuit accusing the search engine giant of infringing publisher and author copyrights with its library-digitizing Book Search project. But that would be far from the end of things. Last month, the Department of Justice confirmed it had launched a formal investigation into the settlement to see if it could find any evidence of anticompetitive practices, and if Google was looking for sympathy, it would be hard pressed to find any (read what Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had to say on the matter here).

But despite all the negative publicity -- or perhaps because of it -- Google maintains it isn't doing anything wrong and denies any talk of a monopoly.

"Of course, no one wants Google to monopolize the poor orphans," said Dan Clancy, engineering director of Google Book Search. "And I don't want to be -- what's the woman in Little Orphan Annie that runs the orphanage? I'm blanking -- I don't want to be her."

Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, which also owns a book scanning operation, sees things decidedly different than Google does. Not only will the settlement create a monopoly, but it will create two of them, Kahle says. Kahle believes Google will have a monopoly on orphans and the Book Rights Registry, as well as a second one that encompasses all rights holders who agree to join.

"Google will have permission to bring under its sole control information that has been accessible through public institutions for centuries. In essence, Google will be privatizing our libraries," Kahle wrote in the Washington Post.

Where do you stand on the issue? Hit the jump and sound off.

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Posted 06/06/09 at 11:05:23 PM by Justin Kerr

Russia’s state run anti-monopoly service has launched a formal investigation into Microsoft over cutbacks in the supply of Windows XP. The agency believes that Microsoft has violated antimonopoly legislation by intentionally limiting the stock of Windows XP to Russia in both retail, and OEM editions which come preinstalled on new PC’s. Analysts claim that Windows Vista continues to be available, while the ongoing demand for XP both by the public, and the government, remains unsatisfied.

Microsoft has yet to formally address the issue, but according to the Moscow regional office, nobody from the anti-monopoly service has tried to contact them. "We (have) always answered antimonopoly service questions in full and intend to continue this practice in future," Microsoft spokeswoman Marina Levina said by telephone. Full scale investigations by the antimonopoly service in Russia are rare, and Microsoft will be given more details by July 24th.

The accusations being made in Russia are drastically different than previous antitrust cases leveled by the EU and USA. In both these cases, the complaints were focused on software bundling for which it was fined $708 million in 2004 by the EU.

Could Microsoft be intentionally limiting Windows XP supply in Russia to help push Vista?

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Posted 05/02/09 at 08:14:58 PM by Justin Kerr

Let it not be said that the European Union is playing favorites when it picks on Microsoft. The powerful antitrust regulators have now set their sights squarely on Intel, and the fines could be much worse. The commission began investigating Intel’s sales practices in late 2000 when AMD filed its initial complaint. Both chip makers are US based, but European regulators are historically much more aggressive at punishing monopolistic behavior than their American counterparts.

The chip maker has allegedly been accused of giving large rebates to computer manufacturers and retail chains to carry Intel exclusively, or in some cases, to downplay the AMD offerings. In some situations, Intel is even accused of offering server chips below cost to help corner the market. Intel denied any wrong doing and according to Intel spokesmen Robert Manetta, “Over all, Intel’s conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers.”  Intel has every right to be concerned over the investigation however, since the fines imposed are rumored to dwarf those faced by Microsoft. In the 2004 EU antitrust verdict against Microsoft, the software giant faced a fine of close to $663 million US. Intel on the other hand could be facing a penalty of $1.3 billion or more according to experts.

Intel currently controls around 81.9 percent of the global market for CPU’s, while AMD scrapes by with only 17.7 percent. A guilty ruling could put Intel into further hot water after being found guilty of anti competitive practices in South Korea less than a year ago. They are appealing the $19.5 million fine, but this is chump change compared to the $3.6 billion penalty the European union is capable of leveling.

Is Intel abusing it’s power?

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Posted 04/23/09 at 05:28:29 PM by Andy Salisbury

Well, it looks Time Warner’s bad streak is far from over – it wouldn’t just end with their undeserved feeling of superiority. In the small city of Wilson, North Carolina, they’re working to destroy local Internet providers, just so that they can inject their own overpriced offering.

Available today in Wilson, NC, you can get expanded basic cable with 81 channels, 10Mbps (download and upload) Internet service, and digital phone service with unlimited long distance to the U.S. and Canada for $99.95. A similar package from Time Warner comes with six less channels, lower upload speeds and costs $137.95 as an introductory rate (which will no doubt skyrocket after a few months). But now, with some help from the North Carolina State Senate, Time Warner is working a bill that will potentially cripple or ban local service, and even prevent local services from getting any funds from the broadband portion of the stimulus package.

In response, the city has spoken out big time against the move, creating a blog that’s pushing for the state government to prevent the bill. Brian Bowman, Wilson’s Public Affairs Manager writes, “I have a 10Mbps up/down connection at my house. Can’t get half that from the cable company. I buy it directly from the City of Wilson. After less than a year of residential service, almost 3,000 Wilson citizens are subscribing to Wilson’s fiber optic network. Local businesses can get up to one Gbps.” He continues, “Bottom line, these companies are using your state lawmakers to protect monopolies. It was wrong in 2007 when a similar bill died in the house and it’s wrong today.”

Honestly, Time Warner. Have you no shreds of decency? This is genuinely despicable behavior.

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Posted 02/23/09 at 10:12:59 AM by Paul Lilly

Ping any power user's PC and there's a good chance you'll find he/she is using Google for search queries (who isn't?), Gmail for at least one email account, and maybe even Google Desktop. Throw in Google Apps and all the rest of Google's offerings and it's not hard to see we're living in a GWorld, but at what point does the company become too big?

This is the question raised by CNet, who points out that Google avoided one antitrust lawsuit by abandoning a proposed advertising pact with Yahoo, only to recently be hit with another by TradeComet.com. Such is the price of growth, which has seen Google take a 36.5 percent to 30.5 percent market share advantage over Yahoo in July 2005 and increase it to 63 percent versus 21 percent currently.

"You almost feel sorry for Google," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land. "They're doing a good job and people are turning to them. But when they pass 70 percent share, people are going to be uncomfortable about Google becoming a monopoly."

Jeff Atwood, a co-founder of Stack Overflow, says he has no ill feelings toward Google, but is definitely concerned about where the company will be in four years. "A world in which there is no competition strikes me as unhealthy," Atwood said.

Is Google close to becoming a monopoly? Hit the jump and post your thoughts.

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Posted 09/24/08 at 11:00:00 AM by Tom Halfhill

AMD continues to suffer through corporate misery, most recently by losing almost $1.2  billion in a single quarter, forcing the replacement of CEO Hector Ruiz with his subordinate, Dirk Meyer. If AMD collapses and Intel becomes the only major vendor of PC processors, will prices soar?

Unfortunately, monopolies usually do inflate prices. They also retard progress. AMD stimulates Intel to price its processors more aggressively and develop better processors. Without AMD, we might not have 64-bit x86 processors today or PC processors with integrated memory controllers. Right now, we’d probably be looking forward to the first quad-core x86 processors instead of the first eight-core chips.

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Posted 10/14/07 at 10:34:24 PM by Erin Simon

Consumer backlash goes litigious as two class actions are filed against Apple for disabling unlocked iPhones.

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Posted 09/21/07 at 11:01:53 PM by Mark Soper

Microsoft rolls out Service Pack 3 for Office 2003. Should you install it?

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