Sherry Gil

Will Ask.com/Google Merger Inspire Yahoo!/Microsoft?

The proposed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft will be good for Microsoft, and for Yahoo shareholders, but will be bad for the rest of us - Google included.

While it is true that Google dominates the search market, Microsoft, on the other hand, dominates the PC operating system. After Microsoft annihilated Netscape Navigator, it claimed that its Internet Explorer (IE) is a natural extension of its windows operating system. If Microsoft acquired Yahoo, what would prevent it from renaming the new MSN-Yahoo search engine the new IE search, and from claiming that it is a natural extension of its IE brower? Would future issues of IE come with a default IE search engine? What would happen to those who would prefer to use Google? Ah, yes, they could always go to Google.Com

The way to compete with Google is to hit it where it hurts most - its pocketbook. Already there is some suspicion that Microsoft might be screening its search engine result where websites with Google Adsense and Google search box might be showing farther down in MSN search results. For more on this, please read: seekingalpha.com/artic...

A new MSN-Yahoo search engine will be bad not only for Google but for the rest of us. It should raise anti-trust concern.