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You're misunderstanding the issue here – monopoly isn't a problem, but abuse of it is.

To use your example – your company makes car types, and has a monopoly. You then branch out, and start making cars as well. And you redesign your tyres such that they're only compatible with your car. Oh, and the roads everywhere only work with your tyres.

That's an abuse of monopoly, and that's what the target is. Look at that fact that Google products are starting to demand Chrome, or to push their other services through their monopoly search engine.

I don't think the problem is that bad yet, but we have to be super vigilant about that stuff or we end up with AT&T, Microsoft, or Standard Oil.

Fair point. I didn't pick up on this from the article. It's this exact reason that I use Firefox & DuckDuckGo.

I based my statement on this:

> The European Parliament has voted in favour of breaking Google up, as a solution to complaints that it favours is own services in search results.

The key part there being ..it favours its own services in search results. In my opinion they are free to rank search results in whatever manner they wish.

In my opinion they are free to rank search results in whatever manner they wish.

I get what you are saying. The problem arises when something like Google is the front page of the Internet for so many people – a monopoly, essentially becoming similar to a public service.

Let's say they decide to rank their own services high, and push competitors down the list. That's a real problem, because it artificially raises the barrier to entry to other market participants.

I can very easily see this becoming a problem with Google as they move into more areas. And it's quite possible that breakup isn't the best solution, but we really should look at what the answers might be before it's too late.

Microsoft was beaten by technological disruption and while they are still big, they are no longer a problem. So I don't get this line about being super vigilant. You served it as an example, so I guess something really bad must have happened there.

It's been 10 years since I stopped using Microsoft's products and now I've switched off many of Google's products, plus I just received an iPhone 6 as a gift and I'm giving it away because I refuse to use it. Yes, 10 years ago it was painful moving off Microsoft's stuff and right now it is painful moving off Google's or Apple's stuff, but so what?

Governments intervening in such matters are doing more harm than good and what really works is voting with your wallet and technological disruption. So while I applaud vigilance, I don't really get this attitude.

"That's an abuse of monopoly, and that's what the target is. "

Actually, the situation you describe is not abuse of a monopoly unless you were the one who made the roads everywhere only work with your tyres.

"Look at that fact that Google products are starting to demand Chrome, or to push their other services through their monopoly search engine."

Assume for a second this was true. This is not monopoly abuse because it's not related to the area in which they have significant market share (unless you plan on trying to argue that in mail, maps, or whatever you also believe they have high market share).

You can't say "well, they have a popular search engine, so if they do unrelated thing x, it's abuse". Monopolies and their abuse are related to specific markets. The abuses take very specific forms, with very specific requirements. The law is generally very careful, because often things like "tying" is actually pro-competitive to a market (or so economists think :P).

" or to push their other services through their monopoly search engine."

Also not a recognized form of antitrust harm :) There is no ban on "pushing", only "tying" (IE actually requiring, and requiring in a way that competitively harms the market).

Even then, the tying generally has to be between products not naturally related. So your example above fails anyway.

(The things you are thinking about, that MS did, was bundling and tying. Google is doing neither in a market which they may be considered to have monopoly market share)

> If my company made car tyres, and 90% of car owners in Europe used my tyres, I'd find it absolutely ludicrous if my competitors tried to break up my company because its "unfair" that I have the market share.

Let's assume you do both sell tires and BMW. And whether your clients would ask a quote for BWMs, details or services - you would always advise them to buy your tires.

And if they would explicitly ask, what else tires I could buy, you would hesitate to admit (e.g. 30 minute length discussion over the phone wire or 30 emails back and forth) what there are any you could recommend / satisfy specs / requirements. That would be quite the same: e.g. people have to redefine their search queries to get non google results, or scroll down, or go to second page results etc..

What gives?

Regardless of your feelings, various countries have thought it a good idea to set up antitrust law and competition laws for just such situations (see [1], [2]).

The logic is that with a large enough market share, a company can keep perpetually dominating the market purely based on status quo, to the detriment of consumers. Related is anti-competitive practices, e.g. where a company might strong-arm "partners" into dropping competitors, or otherwise coercing them into a highly unfair situation for the competitor. This is particularly applicable to companies which try to use their monopoly in one area to leverage a huge advantage in another area (e.g. the famous case of Microsoft using their OS advantage to gain advantage in the browser space - again, you may have different feelings about the issue).

So basically, what we're talking about is a situation where a company is effectively and practically un-challengable primarily due to its current market share, and many countries recognizing this as a problem, and having laws against this type of thing.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_law

>Is this not how business works?

Yes, and the society/lawmakers deciding to take your business down or make it illegal is how society/law works.