Google Divided By 2

Officials of the European Union has suggested that Google should be broken up for competition reasons.

Personally, I don't see the reason for it. I am okay with the idea of government limiting business, but that's if there's cause for it. With Google, that cause isn't there.

I was in favour of the U.S. Justice department's attempt to break up Microsoft in the nineties; in that case, they were clearly using their monopoly to eliminate competitors.

Google has made some clumsy attempts to use their position in one area to gain an advantage in another. The Google search feature on Android phones is a good example. But I think they're a few reasons this is different from Microsoft's situation.

For one thing, it's doubtful that Android has really helped Google's search business. After all, Microsoft's near-monopoly in PC operating systems hasn't helped Bing dent Google's hold on the market. Google would probably still lead in mobile search even without Android. After all, it's not hard to switch.

And that's another thing that's changed: it's easy to switch. I remember during the Microsoft case, some pro-business pundit ridiculing the idea that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows would cut use of Netscape. She characterized the government as treating the public as children, too stupid to download the competing browser if they wanted it. I disagreed with that; for one thing, in those days downloading software was a multi-hour proposition. Free vs. two-hour download was hardly even footing.

But today, switching software is easy and fast. People are a lot more comfortable with technology, and it's hard to herd people into decisions, no matter how much of their electronics you control. I'm not saying it's impossible - there may come a time when it makes sense for one of the super-powerful tech companies to be broken up. But that's far less likely now, and the day just hasn't arrived for Google.

Once again, European lawmakers are choosing their battles awfully: add with the "right to be forgotten" ruling, they're going to great lengths to solve problems we don't have. Is sad given the huge number of tech problems we do have, and could use help from a powerful trans-national body to solve:

• Privacy (from both government and business)
• Identity theft
• Bullying and threats
• Spam & phishing
• Spyware