There is Only One Way to Stop Google: A Government Mandated Break-Up
There is only one way to stop Google in the future. Microsoft won't stop them. Yahoo won't stop them. The US Government is the only organization that will ever be able to stop Google.
Google is an almost embarrassing distance ahead of its rivals in the search engine race. Their market share in the American market is three times as big as their closest rival, Yahoo. And the scary thing for companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo is that Google's iron grip on the search engine market continues to get tighter. Because of this, advertisers spend most of their online ad budgets at Google because they offer the best way to reach the largest amounts of people. Every month that goes by, Google's stranglehold on the search engine market strengthens. With their market share projected to top 70% sometime over the next few years, it is only a matter of time before people start screaming "monopoly."
Google is rolling out technology that will allow its advertisers to buy ads in newspapers and on radio stations around the world. These two industries are both suffering and would both benefit from a third party handling some or all of their ad sales. In less than a decade, Google will be the default ad sales solution for many newspapers and radio stations.
Google is embarking on a number of additional projects in order to continue gaining market share. They are on a mission to offer free wi-fi to every man, woman and child in the United States (and possibly the world after that?), there are rumors of possible open-source operating system software, and then there is Android, the open and free platform for mobile phones. All three of these things will result in increased market share for Google. Theoretically speaking, the more people that have easy access to the Internet, the more people that will be able to click on Google's ads.
What happen when a successful company becomes too successful in the United States? They get broken up. Google has the brainpower, talent and resources to become THE advertising solution for online, newspaper, magazine, television and radio sales. It is already underway. There is no way that one company will be able to have that much of a monopoly over the advertising industry. It is coming. Which company will be able to step up and seriously challenge Google? Microsoft tried to force its way into the search engine market and failed miserably. Yahoo just doesn't have the resources or talent to compete with Google. So in the end, Google's grip on power will continue to strengthen, and all of its competitors will fall by the wayside.
This will lead to a government breakup. No time soon, but over the next 10-20 years I would not at all be surprised to see it happen.
Filed under: Internet Companies