New at Reason

Katherine Mangu-Ward chastises a tech company for seeking advantage over its rivals by manipulating the economic and legal environment rather than through open competition. And no, she isn't talking about Microsoft.

Comments

Danny | February 7, 2008, 12:05pm | #

"And no, she isn't talking about Microsoft."

You mean there are more monopolies in this country than Microsoft and the government! This is news!

Pro Libertate | February 7, 2008, 12:27pm | #

What irked me was how fast Google went to the political mattresses on this potential deal. Whatever the merits of government regulation may be, this kind of rent-seeking pisses me off to no end.

Wonder what this means for Ask and the other players, incidentally?

Rick Barton | February 7, 2008, 12:37pm | #

Off Topic- Romney drops out! Got sick of spending his own money-doesn't have thousands of supporters who are willing to contribute like Ron Paul does!

Click 'n' Learn | February 7, 2008, 12:44pm | #

OT: Why is SamBrownback on Fox? Oh, wait, that's MSM hack MarkHalperin. Sorry about the confusion.

Less OT: Ron Paul will be speaking at CPAC in about four hours. Will Reason be there? I'm going to guess their meeting isn't far from the Orange Line.

If any RP supporters want to improve his chances by reducing McCain's chances, ask McCain this and upload his response. If Reason is going to be there, do they have what it takes to try to ask McCain or one of his helpers that question?

Danny | February 7, 2008, 12:59pm | #

Click 'n' Learn: What is this question? I can't get on youtube at teh works. I saw mention of this in another post yesterday.

Illegal Native | February 7, 2008, 1:00pm | #

Is the question "Do you know AnyMexicans?" or is it "Have you eaten a BeanBurrito?"

Alan Vanneman | February 7, 2008, 1:01pm | #

This is a nice piece, but Katie M-W, as I fondly call her, might have pointed out that, since government action defines the marketplace, the difference between "fair play" and rent-seeking can be awfully hard to find. Without copyright law, Microsoft would be out of business, but didn't Bill Gates essentially steal the visual interface from Steve Jobs (who bought it from Xerox)? I wonder if the federal judge who gave the case to Microsoft didn't feel that the visual interface was "too good" an idea to allow anyone to patent it. Many people, including myself, feel that copyright protection, repeatedly extended at the behest of Walt Disney Inc., lasts too long. But how long is too long? I'll conclude by quoting Herbert Hoover, as I so often do: "The trouble with capitalism is capitalists. They're too goddamn greedy."

Rhywun | February 7, 2008, 1:03pm | #

Last summer, Google took on Microsoft's Vista, claiming that the desktop search function discriminated against Google's competing product.

The link in the quoted sentence doesn't work. I'm curious to know what, precisely, Google did that was "rent-seeking". Is it only rent-seeking if your competitor does it? I don't use Vista, so I don't know if Google Desktop was somehow "disabled" on it, but such a situation is clearly wrong if not illegal. If I used Vista and Google Desktop I would *appreciate* Google's efforts in this area.

Click 'n' Learn | February 7, 2008, 1:04pm | #

The video is embedded here, with the script.

Pro Libertate | February 7, 2008, 1:07pm | #

Bought should have quotes around it. I've met some ex-PARC guys who are still bitter. Of course, these days, the revisionist history around that makes it look like Apple didn't steal anything (they did pay for the right to use the GUI concept but not the fifty other things they stole from there). Most major IT companies have similar stories--MS is certainly guilty of wanton piracy, too.

Windtell | February 7, 2008, 1:16pm | #

This is some pretty petty rent seeking at best, an official comment on their blog ? Come on.

How about an article about American car makers or farmers on the same topic ? A lot more meat in those stories for sure.

Pro Libertate | February 7, 2008, 1:22pm | #

Windtell,

There's more than blog postings going on. Google's offices in DC are already busy.

Russ 2000 | February 7, 2008, 1:23pm | #

steal the visual interface from Steve Jobs (who bought it from Xerox)

...who were FORCED to sell it because of anti-trust action by the government.

DavidS | February 7, 2008, 1:26pm | #

There's more than blog postings going on. Google's offices in DC are already busy.

That may be true - but all this super-lame formulaic article comes up with is: Google wants one its aps to run on Vista; and Google posts something or other on its blog...

Not worth the pixels.

Danny | February 7, 2008, 1:29pm | #

Thanks, Click 'n' Learn.

As with most things, I agree with the first commenter on that post, I think that he could easily weasel out of the question. Ron Paul has had a far tougher time with his "racist newsletters". People always try to disqualify a candidate because of one single mistake, which in Ron Paul's case would be (at best) to put his name on those newsletters without reading the content. I believe that he was extremely busy and completely negligent. A simple human mistake.

As far as McCain, it's (unfortunately) easy enough to shrug that off as "He doesn't make policy. I do." It's just the way it goes...

Mo | February 7, 2008, 1:45pm | #

steal the visual interface from Steve Jobs (who bought it from Xerox)

...who were FORCED to sell it because of anti-trust action by the government.

I didn't realize that any article about MS would bring Mac-cultists out of the woodwork. Of course, it's unsurprising that they have a

FYI, MS licensed the GUI for Win 1.0 from Mac 3 years before Apple sued MS for their Win 2.0 GUI. It was thrown out because of the prior licensing agreement.

Mo | February 7, 2008, 1:46pm | #

Oops, don't know why this sentence got cut off:

Of course, it's unsurprising that they have a tenuous grasp of facts.

Russ 2000 | February 7, 2008, 6:38pm | #

Mo,

WTF is your problem? I've never used a mac in my life. As far as facts are concerned, Xerox and IBM were cutthroat competitors, it would be asinine to think they didn't lobby against each other while they were suing each other. MS vs. Google is no different. Xerox had to make a value decision and were basically forced into favoring their revenue stream over R&D projects that weren't generating any revenue and had little in the way of IP protection precedence. Same thing happens at Apple, same thing happens at IBM, same thing will happen at Microsoft and Google.

Geotpf | February 7, 2008, 6:56pm | #

I'm a Google fan (in fact, a relative of mine works for them), but I think the Yahoo/Microsoft deal will pass regulatory scrutiny, especially if it is reviewed by the Bush administration as opposed to the upcoming Obama or Clinton administration, and if the main bone of contention is their search engines. Google has something like a two thirds share of the search engine market, and Yahoo and Microsoft, combined, have like a 20% share. Now, it might get blocked due to other things (webmail market share, for example), but I still think it will pass regulatory scrutiny in the US.

Now, in Europe, I dunno. EU anti-trust regulators have been much more forceful than American ones in recent years.

Non Grata | February 8, 2008, 9:46am | #

This candidate was at the Googleplex too but I guess it's gauche to mention him any more.

Chris Holte | February 8, 2008, 4:49pm | #

The way to serious money is to monopolize common and desired systems. However, the use of copyrights, trademarks, and corporations to monopolize all or pieces of a common system is not free market competition but the effort to own the market or oligopolistic competition.

To have a free market, there must be common and democratic control over the market itself and all members and wannabee entries need to have equal opportunity to enter and play; otherwise the new system just makes successful pioneers oligarchs over that system (or key subsystems) and incredibly wealthy. The nature of the competition is that it will continue until all the players have gobbled each other up and established an ownership hierarchy.

Remember slavery created a "free market" for slave owners but oppressed those who were the subject of the system or who were unable to participate fully. Our system is creating such disparities now.

Allowing companies to buy, own or acquire other companies is helping them exercise financial power to accrete to an ever smaller minority. When Yahoo merges with Microsoft that gives Microsoft that much more power over Google. Google is right to be afraid and knows the game it is playing is monopolistic competition. Innovation can keep the game going, but only for so long. Sooner or later somebody is going to own boardwalk and everyone else will have to drop out or go Bankrupt.

Game over.