By Debra Mastaler, Alliance-Link

Back in April 2000 PBS ran a news segment called “Is Microsoft Too Big?“. The piece outlined how a Federal Judge thought Microsoft had acted in a monopolistic way by “using its position to take over the market for certain software products” and ordered Microsoft to be split as a result.

Fast forward 7 years and we find ourselves asking a similar question of Google after their recent and very public acquisition of DoubleClick. Did that deal push Google into the “too powerful” stratosphere?

Being powerful equates to having goods and services that are highly valued. If you assume most people want these things, then anyone holding the bulk of what people want are deemed to be powerful. In Googles case, when it comes to search they’ve won us over by doing a better job building consumer loyalty and brand than either Yahoo or MSN by incorporating search applications such as Gmail, Picasa, Blogger, YouTube, Docs/Spreadsheets, Maps, Google News and so on. They’ve done a good job figuring out how to keep us in the house of Google by giving us these tools to use in our everyday online search experience.

But… does the creation of free tools and applications make them too powerful? Are they practicing smart marketing or being monopolistic?

When it comes to search I think it’s more a case of smart marketing. While they’ve given us more tools and widgets to use in search related functions, there are others. We have the opportunity to use them if we choose it’s just they’ve given us some good ones so it’s hard to wander.

However, when it comes to online advertising I’d say the latter given the facts. When Google recently acquired DoubleClick they became the largest advertising platform online, with 265 billion more monthly impressions than their closest competitor and a partnership in over 1000 top sites such as MySpace and eBay. That’s impressive but scary for anyone buying ads online. When there’s only one player with access to the most influential sites arrogance will come into play in some form even when your motto is “don’t do evil”.

While no one will be forced to buy from Google, they’ve made it difficult for an advertiser not to use their service. The gap between DoubleClick and its closest competitor is too wide and leaves little room for the middle of the road advertiser. Hopefully Google will believe it’s own hype and adhere to this statement made recently in a press release: “It has been our vision to make Internet advertising better - less intrusive, more effective, and more useful. Together with DoubleClick, Google will make the Internet more efficient for end users, advertisers, and publishers.”

We’ll see.

Debra Mastaler is President of Alliance-Link, an interactive marketing agency focused on providing link building campaigns and link training and writes for the link building blog The Link Spiel.

Tags: contextweb, google, brain exchange, advertising

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