Couldn’t Help But Notice (123007)

AJStrata, in an update at the top of the post, chronicles what he believes is “a checkmate move by the Iraqi Awakening leaders in one of the last areas infested with Bin Laden’s butchers.” Please let it be so.

________________________________________

I guess Drudge considers this statement controversial, as it’s what he used to directly link to Fred Thompson’s “Message to Iowa Voters” video:

TERRORIST(s) WON’T REST UNTIL MUSHROOM CLOUD OVER U.S. CITY…

Uh, yeah Matt.

____________________________________

Joe Wilcox at eWeek’s Microsoft Watch thinks that Google’s successful acquisition of DoubleClick marks the beginning of a Google monopoly. As long as Google has meaningful competition, he’s hyperventilating a bit, but he makes some very good points:

….. Google is positioned to fulfill the decade-old predictions made about Microsoft but as a more dangerous and consumer harming monopoly. Google’s monopoly would be over information, and there is just too much opportunity for abuse. DoubleClick significantly cranks up the potential volume of abuse.

Already, Google is considered a search powerhouse, but is its dominance understated by analyst data? For example, Google provides search capabilities for AOL, among other Web properties. But analyst firms like ComScore and Nielsen Online separately tabulate Google and AOL search data. AOL pushes Google share to about 60 percent—and that’s ignoring the search providers’ service role to other top Web properties.

Why should anyone care about the Google monopoly? Here are my reasons:
- Google is already an information gatekeeper…..
- There is inherent conflict of interest between Google information gathering and selling stuff around the information…..
- Google has already demonstrated questionable ethics…..
- Google’s business model leaches off the good work of others…..
- Google has no respect for intellectual property rights…..

Read the whole thing. For the dangers of having one company dominate a market segment, see “Microsoft Vista.” The economy is having productivity-inhibiting sand thrown in its wheels by one company that can’t get a computer operating system and, to a lesser extent, a web browser right. The market is attempting self-correction, as many users are switching to Macintosh, Linux (not so much), and Firefox, but the holdback effect is undeniable.

Google, with its transparently self-interested advocacy of “Net Neutrality,” is already engaging in rent-seeking and position-cementing behavior. Its (and Yahoo’s) willingness to sell out to the Chinese police state reveals the frightening possibility that behind the “do no evil” happytalk, there is little if any ethical core. YouTube’s selective deletion of videos that might offend the sensibilities of those currently in power, or those who would be brutal oppressors if they ever had any real power, further supports valid concerns.

Paraphrasing Wilcox, if the company gets its market share into the 70s or 80s, recognizes that its competitors aren’t able to harm them, but then has a bad quarter or two, fees for what used to be free will sprout like weeds.

A widget- or unit sales-based antitrust model may not work against this kind of dominance if it comes to pass. I’m not going to claim to have an answer.

_________________________________________

This can’t possibly fly: The world according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) –
….. in legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, ….. maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

That, it appears, would be irrespective of whether or not you make the music available to anyone else. That goes against roughly 40 years of the industry’s position, going back to whether or not the RIAA considered it OK for you to make a copy of a record (remember those?) onto a cassette so you could listen in your car (yes, it did).

_________________________________________

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this USA Today article about the late-nighters and Comedy Central guys Stewart and Colbert coming back without writers is the fact that, despite being linked from Drudge and the story being up for 8 hours, there are no comments. Meaning no interest?