Thwarted Google-Killer
TradeComet.com, which runs a tiny B2B search engine, SourceTool.com, is suing Google for “starving” them of traffic by raising their AdWords CPC prices from $.05-.10 to $5-10. The Bloomberg article says that the price increase was to “protect Google’s monopoly and prop up a partner Web site for business searches.” It’s laughable to think that Google actually targeted a site of SourceTool.com’s size. 100b market cap companies have bigger fish to fry.
But it’s indicative of what I think will be an important trend–Google’s near-monopolistic power over a huge market will attract growing legal scrutiny, and eventually the DOJ will break it up.
On that note, I wonder if the recession will catalyze civil litigation, particularly troubled businesses suing healthy ones. I have no data on the topic, but it seems intuitive in the same way that global economic downturns historically lead to trade wars.
