Fundamental question to determine Google's antitrust liability is defining relevant market. In this post I discuss the markets of Google. I initiated the discussion in earlier post. It is available here.
Competitive dynamics of Google is complex because internet business is different from traditional manufacturing sector. Here economies of scale are different. Alternative are available. There are almost 50 search engines available. Switching to other search engine will not take time. It is interesting to note that there are some search engines which provide the search result clubbing various search engines such as MetaCrawler gives the search result of Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask.com, About.com, MIVA, LookSmart and other popular search engines but hardly anybody uses it. There is user loyalty and habit with which is stopping user from trying other search engines.
There are mainly three types of market generally Google in advertising market. There is advertisement on Google search network, advertising on content network, behavioral advertising. Google search advertising is Google ad word service. It is an effective way of advertising. It is key word based. The better the key word the more better outcome out of advertisement will be. Sometime competitors Trademark get allotted to other so it become trademark infringement issue. In India there is case Consim India Pvt. Ltd. v. Google India Pvt. Ltd. on this issue.
Second type is advertising according to content of website. Suppose you open sport website you will get sport related advertisement such sports wear, sports equipment, health drinks etc.
Third type of advertisement is behavioral. Generally user is not aware that search engine save the information that what you accessing, through cookies. And later whichever type of website you open the previously opened subject matter related advertisement will be displayed. This has privacy concerns also.
Under the competition law, the question arises that whether these all can be put in one relevant market or not? The inter-changeability will depend upon the fact that if 5-10% prices are increased of one advertisement, whether the advertisers will switch to other type of advertisement.
If the analogy is drawn with Sh. Surinder Singh Barmi v BCCI case of CCI. It was discussed here. Then all the advertisements can be put in one category. Why this issue is important? Because if all the types of advertisement are treated as separate relevant market then Google will not have dominant market share if there is not dominance then there is no question of abuse of dominant position.
Further this issue will be elaborated in coming posts.
Competitive dynamics of Google is complex because internet business is different from traditional manufacturing sector. Here economies of scale are different. Alternative are available. There are almost 50 search engines available. Switching to other search engine will not take time. It is interesting to note that there are some search engines which provide the search result clubbing various search engines such as MetaCrawler gives the search result of Google, Yahoo, Live Search, Ask.com, About.com, MIVA, LookSmart and other popular search engines but hardly anybody uses it. There is user loyalty and habit with which is stopping user from trying other search engines.
There are mainly three types of market generally Google in advertising market. There is advertisement on Google search network, advertising on content network, behavioral advertising. Google search advertising is Google ad word service. It is an effective way of advertising. It is key word based. The better the key word the more better outcome out of advertisement will be. Sometime competitors Trademark get allotted to other so it become trademark infringement issue. In India there is case Consim India Pvt. Ltd. v. Google India Pvt. Ltd. on this issue.
Second type is advertising according to content of website. Suppose you open sport website you will get sport related advertisement such sports wear, sports equipment, health drinks etc.
Third type of advertisement is behavioral. Generally user is not aware that search engine save the information that what you accessing, through cookies. And later whichever type of website you open the previously opened subject matter related advertisement will be displayed. This has privacy concerns also.
Under the competition law, the question arises that whether these all can be put in one relevant market or not? The inter-changeability will depend upon the fact that if 5-10% prices are increased of one advertisement, whether the advertisers will switch to other type of advertisement.
If the analogy is drawn with Sh. Surinder Singh Barmi v BCCI case of CCI. It was discussed here. Then all the advertisements can be put in one category. Why this issue is important? Because if all the types of advertisement are treated as separate relevant market then Google will not have dominant market share if there is not dominance then there is no question of abuse of dominant position.
Further this issue will be elaborated in coming posts.
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