Google Monopoly - Term Paper Example

It delivers the world’s top search engine, the most popular mobile operating system and the best advertising platform in the world” (Reisinger 2010). As the company’s popularity continued to spread, Google was able to acquire other companies, which only served to continue its explosive growth. As it has been reported, Google acquired several small companies to develop products for itself. In 2007, YouTube, an online video site, was acquired… Several other acquired companies include Keyhole Inc.

(Earth Viewer, later developed into Google Earth), Adaptive Path (weblog statistics application), JotSpot (wiki developer technology for collaborative websites), DoubleClick, and Postini (enterprise message security and compliance). (Gudimallan, 2009). Google is very popular indeed. Any company who desires to overthrow the reign of Google will have a hard time succeeding. For this reason it is easy to assume at first glance that Google is a monopoly. It is likely that when most people think of searching for something online, they think of Google first.

The company has become somewhat of a gateway to the rest of the internet. Businesses that want to be successful online work hard to improve their ranking in Google’s search results. However, in order to determine with accuracy rather or not Google is indeed a monopoly the company must be viewed from the perspective of the law. The Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) was enacted to protect trade from those who would dominate it. Having a monopoly can be a bad thing for society. Laws were established to make them illegal.

There are instances in which having a monopoly can be legal, however, the focus of this paper is not to call for condemnation of Google Inc. The company has clearly done a lot of good for society. Yet, the company is a very powerful one and the possibility that it holds a monopoly, at least in some area, is