This morning, Google’s Senior VP of Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, published a short post on the company’s official blog. It is a response to last week’s motion by Microsoft for ownership of Yahoo!. Readers will find the words troubling, hostile, illegal, and monopoly tossed into the mix.
Just some spicy flavoring? Probably not. My immediate impression is that this particular Google executive is sort of concerned (though certainly not blowing his whistle) about the implications of a Microsoft-Yahoo! merger. His primary focus is of the possibility of Internet openness and innovation to be compromised and corrupted (my words, not his), if Microsoft is to succeed in its goal.
He briefly recalls Microsoft’s history of seeking monopolization of various sectors of the software industry, as well as its “legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses” and warns of an attempt by the Windows-maker to “exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC.” He goes on to state that a move to join Microsoft and Yahoo! would result in an “overwhelming share of instant messaging and Web mail accounts” and would constitute a clear majority of Internet portal traffic, effectively opening the possibility to “limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and Web-based services.”
If I’m to be frank here, I take Drummond’s post to be a device meant to stir thoughts of controversy and malign intentions. It’s not quite a gleaming red flag asking for government regulators around the world to halt the acquisition attempt. But it’s halfway there.