Tag Archives: google

Google’s Antitrust Troubles

Posted on September 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

Holman Jenkins sums it up:

Google will be accused of having a “monopoly” on search, though its market share is only 65%, and it charges consumers nothing for its services.

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Posted in Antitrust, Economics, Technology

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CEI Podcast for August 25, 2011: Mr. Fuddlesticks

Posted on August 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

Have a listen here.

Mr. Fuddlesticks is an anonymous YouTube user who posted embarrassing videos about the Renton, Washington police department. They convinced a judge to let them request Mr. Fuddlesticks’ personal information from Google, YouTube’s parent company. While the charges were eventually dropped, Research Associate Nicole Ciandella thinks this highlights a major problem in applying telephone-era laws to the Internet era.

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Posted in CEI Podcast, Technology

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Regulation of the Day 173: Yellow Pages

Posted on May 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s creative destruction in action. San Francisco is phasing out the distribution of hard-copy Yellow Pages. About 1.6 million of the doorstops are delivered to San Francisco homes every year. Most people no longer use them. Between YellowPages.com, Google, Craigslist, and other online tools, consumers now have better options for finding what they need.

Next week, San Francisco’s city council will hold a vote to ban delivery of hard copy Yellow Pages to anyone who doesn’t specifically request one.

This issue doesn’t really need a regulatory solution, though. The books depend on ad sales to be profitable. As people use them less and less, advertisers become more reluctant to pay for ads. When revenues drop enough, it will no longer be worthwhile to print hard copies. This transition will happen just fine on its own.

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Posted in Economics, Regulation of the Day, The Market Process

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Net Neutrality and Rent-Seeking

Posted on October 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

Here is a letter I sent recently to The Wall Street Journal:

September 22, 2009

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

To the Editor:

Your article “Bad News for Broadband” (editorial, Sept. 22) hints at, but does not make, a key point: net neutrality proposals are driving a wedge between service providers like AT&T and content providers like Google.

Strange, is it not? Their interests are actually closely aligned. If AT&T upgrades its network, Google benefits from the increased bandwidth. If Google improves its products, AT&T benefits from increased demand for broadband.

Net neutrality proposals give companies the incentive to seek rents at each other’s expense when they could be benefiting from each other’s innovations instead. This must be music to the ears of lobbyists, but how sad for consumers.

Ryan Young
Fellow in Regulatory Studies
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Washington, D.C.

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Posted in Correspondence, Economics, Public Choice, Technology

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