The Associated Press is reporting from an event at Google's Lunar X Prize headquarters tonight on some comments co-founder Sergey Brin made regarding the potential Microhoo buyout. I was first taken back a bit by the fact that there's an actual headquarters specifically devoted to the Lunar X Prize project, but once I got past that, the quote itself is a bit noteworthy as well.
Brin said that he found Microsoft's takeover bid for Yahoo an "unnerving" maneuver that threatens innovation on the Internet, and mentioned that such a merger could "violate antitrust laws and harm Internet users." As someone who occasionally borders on Google fanboy-ism, I can overlook a lot of faux pas from these guys, but even I have to pause and raise an eyebrow accompanied by the words "pot", "kettle", and "black."
I could find the latest write-up we've done of the Comscore, Nielsen or Compete data we've got talking about exactly how much marketshare Google has over the competition in terms of eyeballs, advertisers or any other number of metrics, but I think most of you are pretty well aware that Google is the dominant leader in just about everything they put an effort into. For Brin to actually say himself that this creates anti-trust issues (especially in the midst of an anti-trust battle themselves) is a bit hypocritical.
Let me come at it from a slightly different angle. A few weeks ago, I was talking to a good friend of mine who works over at Google. He asks me if I knew what the driving strategy was behind the OpenSocial initiative. I offered my best theory at the time, which was something like "as a hedge against the Facebook Beacon and Developer Program initiatives?"
"No, it's actually much simpler than that," he replied. "Google's marketshare is so large in terms of the eyeballs that see it, and so synonymous with the Internet, the best way to really grow the core business is to get more eyeballs on the Internet. The best way to do that is to make the Internet more easy and fun to use."