The EU Kicks Google in the Teeth

Google dominates the world in terms of online advertising. Google has a 30 billion online advertisement industry that dominates much of the Internet marketing campaigns. Their desire to purchase Double Click (a European Company) to expand their operations has forced EU officials to start thinking about anti-trust. In other words, the EU says "we don’t trust you".

Google was not happen with the delay in their ability to move into the EU market. Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt state, "We are obviously disappointed by the European Commission’s decision to extent its review of our acquisition of DoubleClick" and "We seek to avoid further delays that might put us at a disadvantage in competing fully against Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, and other whose acquisitions in the highly competitive online advertising market have already been approved."

The European Union is very protective of its market and wants to encourage growth from within. When large companies come in from the outside they risk damaging this market and putting local businesses out of revenue. Since small, medium and large businesses are the backbone of the EU economy Google is seen as a risk.

Few companies are subject to the second level of scrutiny that Google is going to be subject to. Around 3 – 4% of all companies have been subjected to further review. This means that if the company is not seen as a potential threat it is accepted. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL have all moved forward with their acquisitions and this simply "burns" Google.

The fear that many in the EU as well as the U.S. have is that with the acquisition of Double Click and Google’s current size that they will dominate the market, become one of the worlds largest data sources on people, and have an unfair advantage that will put many companies out of business. This restriction in Europe is now raising concerns in the U.S. that American authorities will consider similar action.

The power Google will amass if it has information on just about every Internet user in the U.S. and Europe will be amazing. People must question whether or not this information is safe, whether it is necessary and whether or not it constitutes a threat. Google is likely to disagree that the information will ever be compromised or used unfairly. However, with the recent War on Terrorism wasn’t Google a prime target of Homeland Securities investigation requests?

It appears that law is now catching up to Internet companies and their size. For many years the Internet has been able to outpace the law and few restrictions were applied. The decision by the EU starts forcing both accountability and anti-trust restrictions on Internet companies that are becoming too large. Is it a good or a bad thing? Few people could answer a question like this.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that Google won’t be able to purchase Double Click or any other company that it desires. However, it does mean that their actions will fall under further scrutiny and that their actions will be double guessed much of the way. How this affects Google no one knows.