Google criticises Microsoft’s attempted acquisition of Yahoo

Posted by multippt

In response to an (not so) unexpected offer by Microsoft, Google has decided to counter Microsoft’s attempt at becoming a dominant presence on the Internet. Earlier a few days ago, Microsoft offered Yahoo an interesting $44.6 billion to acquire it. Google was playing along silently until 2 days later.

What Google says

“The openness of the Internet is what made Google — and Yahoo! — possible.” - Basically it’s trying to say that Google and Yahoo are very “open” in their approach towards users unlike Microsoft, and has acknowledged that controlling the net is not possible given the freedom of the net.

“Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC?” - Google fears that Microsoft’s takeover will mean that Microsoft will exert monopoly strength and controversy on the Internet as what it has done to computers.

“Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?” - Seems like Google is saying that Microsoft is not trustworthy and has resorted to practices that go against fair competition.

You can read all about it from the word of the vice president of Google through their blog.

Google fears 

Though, all these claims, though true, are kind of biased. While Google is trying to inform the public that Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo is one that may bring about competition problems (i.e. monopoly and anti-trust), in reality Google is probably afraid that Microsoft Yahoo will be much more formidable than its original opponent, Yahoo. Microsoft has the money, Yahoo has the tech. So, both combined will give them the edge Google will have trouble trying to compete.

Of course… Google can’t simply buy Yahoo

Given Google’s encouragement on “openess and innovation”, Google will unlikely offer up any bid to buy Yahoo, because it doesn’t want to show that it is going against its own words. If Google were to bid for Yahoo, it will cause controversy, because this means Google will be controlling and monopolizing the net. Sure, Microsoft has this problem as well, but in Google’s case it has become an Internet giant unlike Microsoft which has so far been unsuccessful. This makes it all the more harder for innovative Google to acquire Yahoo, especially if it doesn’t want to get hit by anti-trust cases.