Google and Antitrust Behavior
There are many companies and businesses today that all have specific goals in common. Often, these goals are to get established in the market and to be successful. Unfortunately, sometimes the practices that a company performs in order to get there could be considered illegal or unethical at best. These tactics can even go so far sometimes as to hurt or destroy the competition. This is what can be known as antitrust behavior. Following is the account of Google, the popular search engine company, and how it was under investigation for antitrust behavior. Also discussed are the costs that were involved with the antitrust behavior and whether or not a monopoly is good for a society.
Author David Goldman (2012) stated that the investigation into possible antitrust behavior on Google’s part mainly began with the implementation of a new feature that was added to its service called, Search Plus Your World (para. 1). A lot of controversy came about because of this feature and got the attention of Google’s competitors. Goldman (2012) noted that the way the feature works is that it will take search results and tailor them to each individual user. This is done by tapping into Google+, which is Google’s social network. Search results that are presented include profiles and posts from Google+ but omitted are other social services, notably social networks such as Twitter and Facebook (para. 4). Google has defended its position in the matter though by explaining that the reason for the Search Plus Your World feature is to benefit its users and the company has also expressed that boosting the services of its rivals is not its legal duty (para. 5). According to Goldman (2012), antitrust experts believe that with Google’s search process being bundled with Google+, it is requiring companies to join Google+ to be able to be ranked at the very highest level in its search results (para. 16). However, both Twitter and Facebook are not...